


while the getting is good

by Walutahanga



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Adults Being Responsible, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Outsider, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-04-16 04:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14157276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: Jay's minor scuffle with a classmate the day before the coronation triggers a different set of events.Now Auradon has to find four vulnerable teenagers who are equally determined not to be found.





	1. Chapter 1

Most days Lacey enjoys her job. Perhaps teaching isn’t most people’s first choice as a career, but she loved it.

Then there are the days like this.

She struggles to hold back a sigh at the angry yell from the back of the classroom and the sound of tussling. The first time this had happened she’d been concerned. Now she’s just frustrated.

“Gentleman,” she says, turning round. “Do I have to send you to the principal’s office?”

Aziz, to his credit, looks slightly ashamed as he shoves free of the other boy.  “No, Miss,” he says. “We’re done.”

The other boy laughs, dusting himself off, and fires off something in rapid Arabic that has Aziz swinging round like he’d throw a second punch.

“Jay!” Lacey snaps. “Would you care to repeat that so that we can all understand it?”

Jay just turns that smirk her way. “No, Miss. It wouldn’t…uh, translate well.”

Lacy looks at the two of them – Aziz furiously simmering, Jay cheerfully insolent – and quietly despairs of ever having her quiet classroom back. Whose bright idea had it been to stick Jafar and Aladdin’s sons in the same class?

“Sit down,” she tells both of them. “No, not together. Aziz, you swap with Taylor. Jay, stay where you are. Both of you can see me after class.”

Aziz sulkily obeys. Jay shrugs and sits back down, propping his feet up on the table again. Lacey knows better than to call him on it. He’s well-practised at stretching out arguments until the bell rings and she’s learned to just ignore him unless he does something completely outrageous.

“Don’t know why,” Chad mutters, soto-voice. “It was Jay who started it.”

“Do you want to join them, Mr Charming?” Lacey snaps.

“No.”

“Then keep your thoughts to yourself.”

The classroom is mercifully quiet after that. For once everyone turns in their homework. Chad’s is in someone else’s handwriting and she sighs, making a mental note to talk to Fairy Godmother again. At least Jay’s work, which looks suspiciously like it’s been gnawed by a dog, shows an honest attempt to answer the questions.

After the bell rings she waits until all the students have left apart from Aziz and Jay. Aziz looks mutinous while Jay is impatient, eying the door.

“Is this going to take long?” He says. “’cos I got somewhere to be.”

“It will take as long as I say it needs to.” Lacey folds her arms. “Care to tell me what that was about earlier?”

Both boys go silent, finally united in their refusal to speak.  

It’s tempting to blame it on Jay. The classroom had been manageable until he arrived and Aziz has always been such a quiet, studious boy. Jay is a rude, disruptive brat and it’s so, _so_ tempting to blame it all on him. _But_ that would be going against everything her father taught her. Never abuse the power of your position. Don’t make snap judgements.

And her father would know, having spent ten years as a candelabra because his employer was cruel to the wrong person.

“This cannot keep happening,” she says. “I don’t care what happened between your fathers–”

“It wasn’t about our fathers!” Aziz objects. “I mean, yeah, usually it is. But this time it wasn’t.”

“Then what _was_ it about?”

Aziz hesitates, glancing at Jay who folds his arms and refuses to meet his eyes. Lacey, well-versed in the body-language of teenagers, smells a secret.

“I can go to Coach. I’m sure he’d be delighted to hear about this. Perhaps two boys will not attending the coronation tomorrow–”

Jay twitches as if someone had poked him. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Aziz annoyed me so I shoved him. We’re cool now, though.”

“How was Aziz annoying you?”

“Nothing.”

“It couldn’t be nothing if you shoved him.”

“He wouldn’t stop bugging me, is all.”

Aziz scoffs, rolling his eyes and Lacey turns her attention to him. “Aziz?”

“I wasn’t bugging him. All I did was ask if he was okay.”

“Yeah, you’re such a saint,” Jay sneers.

“Hey, I wasn’t there. Don’t blame me.”

Lacey interjects. “Blame you for what?”

Another silence. Lacey looks at Aziz until he cracks and says reluctantly: “Family Day. Audrey’s grandma said some stuff.”

“Dude, shut up,” Jay says, his face flushed red, but Lacey has an idea of what happened now.

 “Is that true, Jay?”

“No. She was talking to Mal, not me.”

“Yeah, but it was in front of everyone,” Aziz adds, apparently deciding to get his piece in. “King Beast and Queen Belle and a whole bunch of people. Lonnie told me all about it. And Chad got in on it and said Evie was a gold-digger and that Jay liked to hurt people.”

 _Chad Charming._ Lacey would like to drop-kick that smug little shit out of school grounds. Sadly he’d probably bounce right onto a throne and they’d all be the worse for it.

“Has Fairy Godmother heard about this?” She says.

Aziz shrugs but Jay rolls his eyes. “She was _there_.” When Lacey stares at him in disbelief he adds: “Go ask her if you like. She saw the whole thing. _Whatever_. It’s not like it wasn’t all true.”

He rolls his shoulders, mouth fixed in a smile, but Lacey realises for the first time that Jay’s confidence is a show. That he does care. Deeply.

“Alright,” she says after a moment. “Aziz, you can go. Jay, stay a moment.”

Aziz lingers. “But, Miss, it was as much my fault as Jay’s–”

 _Teenagers_. Gone from squabbling to defending each other in the blink of an eye. It’s exasperating and touching at the same time.

“He’s not in trouble, Aziz. At least no more than you are. Go.”

Aziz hesitates, looking at Jay who _still_ won’t look at him, before picking up his bag and leaving.

“Going to fill out a detention form, Miss?” Jay says with a cheeky grin.

“No.” Lacey pulls up a chair. “I was actually just going to ask if you wanted to talk about it.”

He scrunches up his nose. “You Auradons always want to talk about things,” he says like it’s deeply weird and slightly distasteful.

“What about your father? A phone call or video conference perhaps–” She knows immediately she’s said the wrong thing by the way his expression blanks out.

“No,” he says evenly. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Right. Jafar. Villain. Probably not much for pep talks.

“What about your mother? I’m sorry, I don’t know, is she still in the picture? Or brothers or sisters or something…”

Jay opens his mouth, hesitates.

“…I have an aunt?” He says slowly.

* * *

Jay watches Miss Lacey make the call, wondering what the hell he’s doing. Jafar had been very clear that they were not to speak to anyone else from home, just in case someone else heard about the plan and blurted it out over an open phone line where someone from Auradon might hear.

But when Miss Lacey asked if he had any other relatives, Aunt Nasira had just popped into his head.

He had no idea why. You could die of old age waiting for Nasira to offer up a kind word. One of his earliest memories was her and Jafar screaming at each other, and on her best days she treated her own nephew and daughter like poorly trained, not very bright dogs. She was smart though. A _lot_ smarter than Jafar when it came to people. It was how she made her living, telling fortunes in an old shack by the beach. Even without magic, she knew what buttons to press, how to make people go away happy and come back for more.

Maybe she’d know what to tell Jay, to make this tight knot of dread in his stomach go away.

“Hello, this is Miss Lacey.” The teacher winks at Jay. “I’m calling behalf of your neph–” It’s kind of funny to see her expression go from smiling to consternated (a pretty normal reaction to Nasira). “Yes, he’s right here. I’ll put him on.” She hands the phone to Jay.

“Hello?” He says.

“So you are alive.” Nasira’s voice says tightly in Arabic. “And in Auradon.” 

“Didn’t Dad tell you?” He says, switching languages automatically. His aunt sounds _pissed_. Granted she sounds unhappy at the best of times, but out of self-preservation he’s learned to instantly recognise that particular flavour of rage.

“He told me that mad fay’s latest scheme,” she spits. “I thought there was no way he was telling the truth – no one could possibly be that stupid.”

“Um.” Jay’s gaze flicks to Miss Lacey. “You should know, my teacher’s listening in. I don’t think she can understand, but…”

“Forget her and listen to me. You’re not actually following this insane plan, are you?”

“…yes? I mean, Dad thinks we can do it.”

“Jafar thinks he can find a Genie lamp on the Isle. Your father’s a raging lunatic, boy, and if you haven’t noticed by now, you’re a moron.”

“We’re not children. We can handle it.”

She snorts. “Nephew, you and your little gang are petty thieves and vandals. I’d trust you with a back alley murder. _Maybe_. This is far beyond your scope.”

Even though he’s used to her tongue, that stings. “Hey…”

“You want lies and vanity puffing, go borrow Geniveve’s mirror. This is not the time to irritate those blasted royals. This is the time to lay low, to smile humbly and say ‘yes, sir’ ‘no, sir’ and if they say jump, you ask how high. If you’ve any luck, by the time they remember to fear you, you’ll have a decent education and moved somewhere without extradition laws –”

“It’s a bit late for that.”

There's a pause and he winces at her dangerous tone when she says: “What do you mean, _too late_?”

“We’ve already started the plan.”

He explains the love spell on Ben, to make him invite Mal to coronation where she could snatch the Wand. The love spell that might wear off at any second, the way love spells do, and then Ben would know everything about them was true.

“…At least if we try, there’s a chance we can make it work,” Jay says, pretending like he isn’t shit-scared. “We do nothing and we’re back on the Isle sooner or later.”

Nasira is silent for a long moment. Then: “There’s still one option you haven’t thought of.”

* * *

Jay enters Mal’s room without knocking. Gathered about the spell book, the others jump then relax when they recognise him.

“Where the hell have you been?” Mal demands.

“Talking to my aunt.” Jay checks the corridor then closes and locks the door.

Mal’s brow furrows. “…Nasira?” She says after a moment. “How?”  

“Miss Lacey set up a call. Think she felt sorry for me or something. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. We need to go.”

“Go where?” Carlos says, puzzled.

“Somewhere. Anywhere. So long as it isn’t Auradon.” Jay goes over to the cupboard and starts dragging out clothes, throwing them on the bed.

“Run?” Evie says. “But we’re so close! We can get the wand!”

“Forget the wand. Aunt Nasira says we need to get out while the getting is good.”

Mal shoves the cupboard door closed, getting in Jay’s face. Her eyes are not quite glowing green, but close to it. “What does that washed up old hag know about anything?”

“That washed up old hag kept Auradon chasing their tails for a year longer than any other villain.”

“Yeah, because no one _cared_.”

Carlos steps between them. “Come on, guys cool it. Jay, maybe you should be a little clearer.”

Jay huffs a frustrated breath and enunciates clearly: “The plan’s not going to work.”

“Yes, it is!” Mal snaps.

“ _Look around you!_ We can’t win this. If we fail, they’ll send us back to the Isle. If we succeed, our parents are just going to keep treating us like the disposable help.”

“They said– ”

“When have they ever kept a promise to us? Ever? Name one time.” When Mal says nothing, Jay barrels on: “If we don’t try at all, sooner or later that spell on Ben will wear off and he’ll send us back to the Isle. Whatever we do, we’re screwed. Our best chance. Our _only_ chance is to run like hell and not look back.”

He runs out of words. Nasira had been so succinct and clear when she explained this to him, forcing him to see the bigger picture. He doesn’t have her gift for language. He probably sounds like a lunatic.  

Evie is biting her lip. She quickly stops, smoothing away the indent with her tongue. Carlos looks pale and worried. It’s impossible to tell what Mal is thinking, her face smooth and expressionless.

“What exactly did Nasira say to you?” She says slowly.

“I just told you.”

“No, there’s something more. I’ve never seen you this spooked.” Mal’s sharp eyes miss nothing and Jay looks away, avoiding that intent gaze.

“She said she’d have preferred if my cousin had got out, but I was better than nothing. And if I wasted this chance and ended up back on the Isle, she’d know I was as useless and inept as Jafar, and wash her hands of me.”

He stops, hoping that Mal will take that as an entire answer. She gestures impatiently for him to go on. “ _And_?”

“She said…” The words feel clumsy and strange on his tongue. “She said ‘I love you’.’”

Evie’s hand rises slowly to cover her mouth. She looks as shocked as Jay had felt, hearing it over the tinny phone line. You didn’t use those words on the Isle, not unless you wanted to end up robbed and gutted in an alleyway, waiting for the Barrier to resurrect you. They were a sign of weakness, a vulnerability to be exploited – if not by the person you said it to, then whoever else happened to hear.

He’d never in a million years expected to hear it from Nasira. _“Surprised you, did I?_ ” She’d said. _“Good. Auradon hasn’t softened you too much. You might make it after all. But you deserve to know. If I could have taken you away from Jafar, I would have.”_ Then the dull click of the phone hanging up.

“You’re sure?” Carlos says, and backs off when Jay glares at him. “Just checking. You’re sure you didn’t mis-hear?”

“No. She said it.”

“Could it have been for Miss Lacey’s benefit?” Mal asks neutrally. Jay shakes his head.

“We were speaking Arabic. She couldn’t understand us.”

Mal eyes unfocus, stare speculatively into the distance, following some invisible line of thought. “We’d need money,” she says finally. “A lot of money.”

Jay could kiss her. “Good thing I stole a lot of credit cards.”

* * *

Ben looks across the sunlit lawns. 

“Are you sure you can’t find her?” He says to the coachman, who’s looking at his watch and getting twitchy.

“I am sure, sir. We can’t wait much longer, the coronation starts in –”

“I know when it starts.” Ben peers across the lawns, hoping against hope that he’ll see Mal running late. It must have been what happened on Family Day. She’d been very quiet since then. He'd assured her everything was fine, but sometimes he'd catch her looking at him with an almost scared expression. It hadn't occurred to him that she would be so upset that she'd skip coronation without telling him. 

A running figure catches his eye, but it’s not Mal. It’s Lonnie, panting and clutching a small box.

“Ben, I’m sorry. I just found this in my locker. The note said to give it to you. I think it’s from Mal.”

She hands it up to him and he opens the lid, already knowing what he’d find. A small anti-spell cupcake and a note that says ‘ _Eat this. Sorry._ ’

* * *

The next day, Lacey comes into work to discover that she’s undergone a promotion. The Fairy Godmother and several teachers are absent – hospitalized by that disaster of coronation yesterday – and due to being the most senior teacher left, Lacey is suddenly Acting Headmistress. 

She tries to roll with the punches. She asks the office secretary to arrange some flowers to be sent to the Fairy Godmother’s house and starts sorting through the chaos left behind. The most urgent problem is doing a headcount of the students. The dorm-master was one of the hospitalized, so no one’s checked to ensure everyone is where they’re meant to be. A quick roll-call reveals eleven students not returned from coronation. A round of phone calls locates seven who’d stayed overnight with their parents, forgetting to notify the school. Understandable in the circumstances, but irksome since it wastes Lacey’s time tracking them down.

In the end, there’s only four that no one’s seen since the coronation.

Jay. Mal. Evie. Carlos.

Lacey stares at that list, with a horrible feeling in her stomach. So far, the details of Maleficent’s escape haven’t been released to the public. But there were rumours about a girl stealing the Fairy Godmother’s wand. And she knows Mal was Ben’s date, who’d be standing up on the daze right next to the wand…

She recalls Jay’s argument with his aunt in Arabic, the furtive glances he’d given her.

_Oh gods. What have you kids done?_

The police station tries to put her on hold until she says that she’s the Acting Headmistress of Auradon Prep (leaving out the ‘Acting’ part). Then she’s put straight through Police Chief Phoebus, which is not quite what she intended.

“Fairy Godmother?” He says, sounding surprised. “I thought you were meant to be looking after Jane –”

“No, no. I’m– it’s Lacey Lumiere. I’m standing in for Fairy Godmother at the school while she’s away.”

“Oh, of course." His voice warms. "Your father told me you worked for the school now, but I completely forgot.”

“We’ve met?”

“Years ago. You probably don’t recall, but whenever my wife and I were invited to the palace, our son would sneak off to play with the palace children…”

It strikes a chord of memory and she suddenly recalls a little boy who’d thrown her favourite doll out a window. “Oh, _Zephyr_! That was so long ago. I think we lost touch after school.”

“It happens. Anyway, how can I help you, Lacey?” 

“To be honest, I don’t know quite how to ask.” She laughs a little nervously. “There are four students missing but I don’t know if they’re actually missing. What with everything that happened yesterday–”

“Slow down. Lets start from the beginning. You said four students. What are their names?”

“Malady Raven. Carlos De Ville. Genevive Fitzroy. Jaed Ophidian.”

A slight pause. “Malady Raven. That’s Maleficent’s daughter?”

“That’s right. Everyone just calls her Mal. She was going to the coronation as King Ben’s date.” Lacey pauses, trying to find the right words. “There are rumours floating round that a girl stole the wand. It wasn’t… it wasn’t her, was it?”

“What?” Phoebus sounds honestly disturbed. “Where on earth did you hear that?”

“People are talking.”

“Well you can rest easy. I can’t confirm or deny any rumours, but I _can_ tell you that Mal wasn’t even at the coronation.”

“Thank the gods.” Warm relief washes over Lacey in a wave, followed by a cold wave of panic. “Wait. If she wasn’t at the coronation, then she’s been missing since _yesterday morning_.”

It might have been reassuring if he’d said it was nothing serious, that he was sure Mal and her friends would show up. Instead he says he’ll send detectives straight out to the school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And yes, I pulled those names out of nowhere because Carlos is the only one we ever get a full name for. 
> 
> I figured Evie's mom is exactly the kind of narcissist to give her daughter her own name, and Fitzroy is an old surname for royal bastards (My knowledge of Tanya Huff's Blood Books becomes useful!). I almost did the same for Mal but had too much fun with evil-ish names starting with 'Mal' so here she's Malady, and I think 'Raven' speaks for itself. 
> 
> As for Jay, that's an English name, which I couldn't see Jafar doing without a good reason, so I decided to make it short for Jaed. Ophidian is the suborder of reptiles that snakes belong to, which seemed... appropriate, given the family's obsession with the snake motif.
> 
> Nasira, if you're wondering, is from a video game. She's on worse terms with her brother here than in the game, but I figure sixteen years of watching Jafar exploit and mistreat your nephew would be enough to disillusion anyone even remotely invested in the kid's wellbeing.
> 
> EDIT (06/04/18): I’ve made one tiny little change - it’s now one year that Nasira remained free not five, just because it fits better with an idea I’d like to explore later on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phoebus starts his investigation, starting with the Isle.

Phoebus doesn't care for politics. Unfortunately they are a necessary part of his job.

When he was first appointed by Frollo all those years ago, it hadn’t been because he had any fortune or connections. It was because he had neither and the priest had made it very clear Phoebus was to be appropriately grateful. It had necessitated walking a fine line between pacifying his benefactor and protecting Notre Dame from the man’s mad zealotry. Then after Frollo had been overthrown, the new king said _“I think you can do better than Notre Dame”_ and Phoebus somehow found himself gone from Captain of a single city to Captain of all of France.

It hadn’t been as big a change as you’d think. Because while this new king was thankfully neither insane nor corrupt, and he didn’t mind Phoebus talking back to him (in fact insisted on it), his appointment of Phoebus hadn’t been entirely unselfish. It was also because the king was freshly returned from years of absence with few allies among the aristocracy and wanted the unwavering support of new-risen nobles like Phoebus. So while Phoebus isn't fond of politics, he can’t deny he’s benefitted from them and has developed a good instinct for them.

It's how he can tell this case is going to be a shit-show.

* * *

“I told Ben,” Beast says, tossing the file onto his desk. “Those kids are just like their parents.”

“What makes you say that?” Phoebus says, refraining from the urge to rescue the abused folder.

“Isn’t it obvious? They arranged this whole thing to free Maleficent and ran away when it didn’t work out.” Beast sighs. “Ben’s going to be so disappointed.”

Phoebus studies Beast carefully, the lines of stress and grief illuminated in the unforgiving light from the study window. It’s no secret that Beast didn’t approve of his son’s plans for the Isle, and with recent events, he’s unlikely to change his position. However Phoebus _needs_ the throne’s support to get anywhere with this case, and until Ben recovers, that means Beast.

Phoebus considers several different approaches before responding. “Beast, do you trust my judgement?”

“Of course, Phoebus. You know I do.”

“Then trust me when I say your judgement is compromised on this.”

Anger flashes across Beast’s face. “Not you as well,” he growls impatiently.

“Beast, listen.” Phoebus holds up his hands pacifyingly. “I agree it is _possible_ that Mal staged that conversation with Fairy Godmother’s daughter to plant the idea of stealing the wand. However we have no proof.”

“Proof? Jane told us what she said. What more proof do you need?”

“We only have Jane’s word it took place. Any competent defence lawyer will say that she’s trying to deflect the blame onto an easy target, and even Jane admits that Malady never actually told her to do it." Phoebus smiles, trying to soften his words. "If Malady were going to steal the wand, I think she'd have a better plan." 

It doesn't work. Beast’s expression is darkening. "Why did they run then? Only the guilty run."

"I'm not convinced they did."

“Come again?”

“There’s a lot of angry people out there, after the coronation. Not to mention all the villains that escaped while the Barrier was down. Not all of them were Maleficent’s allies and while they wouldn’t dare take her on directly, I doubt they’d be so cautious of her teenager daughter.”

To Beast’s credit, it only takes him a few seconds to switch tracks. Horror, chagrin, and then resolve pass across his face. Say what you like about the man, his protective instincts are on point. Offer up a potential victim and he's ready to charge in and defend them.

“What do you need from me?”

“Full access to the Isle.”

“Done.”

“And cooperation from the royals in my investigation.”

Now Beast balks. “What is the point of that? If a villain took them –”

“We need to piece together their movements. Their classmates are the ones who’ve seen and spoken to them everyday. They’ll know their habits and routines. But if the royals get even a whiff of official investigation around their children, they’ll throw up diplomatic immunity so fast your head will spin." 

Beast grimaces and nods. “I’ll make my position known. But keep it respectful and discrete - the last thing I need is some king or queen throwing a fit because a ham-fisted cop drove their daughter to tears."

"I'll handle it personally." Phoebus rescues his folder, then asks more gently: “How’s Ben?”

“The doctors think he’ll make a full recovery. He hasn’t woken up yet. They think in a day or two –” Beast stops, jaw clenching.

“I hope he gets better,” Phoebus offers quietly, and lets himself out. For once he’s not lying or even exaggerating. For all that he respects Beast, and sincerely likes him and what he’s done for Auradon, Ben has the makings of something better.

Phoebus sincerely hopes that Ben wakes up soon.

* * *

The Isle is quieter than Phoebus was expecting. He’s seen surveillance footage so he knows the streets are usually bustling with foot traffic; stall-owners hawking wares, gang-members strutting about and picking fights, young kids darting through the crowd to pick pockets. Today, the streets are nearly empty. Some faces peer outside as the security van passes then quickly withdraw, pulling windows and doors shut.

“I’d thought it would be more chaotic,” Pheobus remarks to one of the security officers accompanying him. “What with the Barrier still broken.”

“You should have seen it Saturday night, sir,” the man replies. “It was utter chaos. All the villains who had magic were either escaping or going on a rampage.”

“Rampage?” Phoebus realises with a sense of chagrin that he’d given no thought to the Isle’s inhabitants, only those of the mainland. Foolish in hindsight; with so many villains condensed here, living in each other’s back pockets for years on end, any number of rivalries and hatreds must have been waiting for a trigger.

The officer nods absently, gaze watching the street with an unwavering vigilance. “Yen Sid was able to calm everything down eventually, but not before a lot of deaths. We had to move about three dozen casualties to the mainland hospital.”

“Why not the hospital here?” 

“There is no hospital on the Isle, sir.”

“No hospital?” Phoebus says in surprise.

The officer shrugs. “Never needed to be, before now. The Barrier stopped anyone dying.”

“Medical centre?”

A shake of the head. “There’s a clinic run by mainland doctors, but that’s only during Thursday business hours when we can get security over to cover it. Most people go to Madam Mim; she’s a fair-hand with herbs. Though she’ll be gone now too. She was one of the escapees.”

Phoebus opens his mouth to say something, and stops. The Isle had always been the jurisdiction of the crown. They supplied the food, maintained the infrastructure, controlled access, and before now Phoebus had never questioned that arrangement. The logistics of governing an island of villains were not something he’d been panting to get at. Now, he starts to wonder if that had been a mistake.

“At least tell me there’s a school,” he says, half-joking.

The officer answers matter-of-factly: “They’ve put together their own school. Can’t say I approve of some of the curriculum, but most kids learn how to read and write.”

 _Most_ kids. The Isle was barely two miles off the coast of France, where literacy levels were the highest in Auradon.

Phoebes broods in silence until the van stops before a ramshackle house that looked like it should have been torn down years ago, surrounded by houses that looked like they should have been torn down decades ago. A scowling middle-aged woman wearing a faded red dress answers the door.

“If you’re after Jafar, that bastard isn’t here,” she snaps. “He escaped with the others last night.”

“I am aware of that,” Phoebus says, not sure if he’s offended or amused by the rude greeting. “I’m Police Captain Phoebus. These are my security escorts. We’re looking for Nasira Ophidian.”

The woman folds her arms, unimpressed. “You’re speaking to her. What do you want?”

“You are Jafar’s sister?”

The wrinkles at the corner of her mouth deepen suspiciously. “Yes.”

Phoebus thinks he would have known, even if she hadn’t said so. It’s obvious which family member Jaed takes after. Nasira has the same high cheekbones and dark eyes as her nephew. She must have been a beauty back in the day, before hardship and age took its toll.

“May we come inside?” He says.

“No. What you say, you can say now.”

“It’s about your nephew Jaed.”

She glares for a long moment, then steps back with bad grace. “Fine. I guess we’re doing this. Ignore the mess; this is my brother’s house. I’m only here because someone set my house on fire after the Barrier fell.”

Inside, the house is stuffed with ramshackle belongings; things that have no obvious purpose and have been shoved behind or on top of other equally useless things. One of the escorting officers nearly trips over a bucket of rusty oil lamps and Phoebus skirts carefully around a precarious stack of magazines as high as his shoulder.

A dark-haired little girl who looks about ten years old is sitting at the rickety table and playing with a deck of cards, shuffling them with a practised hand.

“Jade, go upstairs,” Nasira barks.

“Why?”

“Because I said so. And don’t you dare go into your uncle’s room. Go to Jay’s room and stay there until I call you.”

The little girl scowls (looking just like Jaed’s file photo), and pushes back from the table, disappearing up the stairs.

Nasira holds up a hand when Phoebus starts to speak. “Jade,” she says louder. “I can hear you eavesdropping. Either get better or get lost.” There’s no reply or footsteps, but Nasira seems satisfied that the child is gone when she turns back to Phoebus. “Well? Spit it out.”

“There’s no easy way to say this,” he says. “Jaed has disappeared.”

For a few moments Nasira doesn’t react, standing there perfectly still like she’s thinking something over.

“When?” She says finally.

“We’re still piecing it together. The last time anyone saw him or his friends was Friday night, with his teacher.”

“That Lacey girl,” Nasira says, surprising him with her recall. “She doesn’t know anything?”

“She was with him for about half an hour, while he was on the phone to you. After he’d hung up, they said good night and Jaed went back to the dorm.”

“And no one saw him after that?”

“No one who’s come forward.”

“How do you know Jafar didn’t take him? Jafar escaped the next night, maybe he picked him up.”

“Anything is possible,” Phoebus says diplomatically.

“You’d better hope not,” she says scathingly. “Jafar will ruin that boy.” At Phoebus’ expression, she gives him a thin mocking smile: “Oh. You think I _want_ my brother to have Jay. Well, you can forget it. It’s a sheer miracle he didn’t turn out like the Hook boy, blood notwithstanding.”

“You disapprove of the way Jay was being raised?” Phoebus says slowly. He hadn’t expected this level of bitterness between brother and sister. All the file notes indicate that they’d been on good terms; good enough for Nasira to attempt to resurrect Jafar herself and come along tamely later when it was promised she’d be reunited with him on the Isle.

But clearly _something_ has changed between then and now, because her lip curls at the mention of her brother. “Jafar’s idea of parenting is an obscene joke. I’d sooner entrust a bird to him. In fact, the bloody bird hasn’t spoken to him in years. Hangs out with Cassim now, in the market place.” One thin finger taps her elbow in an irate beat. “If my brother did take Jay, it’s all our best interests – _especially_ Jay’s – that you get him the hell back.” 

“That is the plan,” Phoebus promises. “It’s actually why we wanted to talk to you. You spoke to Jaed for half an hour on Friday.”

“What about it?”

“What did you talk about, for a start?”

“Ask the teacher. She was listening.”

“She doesn’t speak Arabic. She said it seemed an intense conversation.”

Nasira snorts. “Hardly. The boy was whining about some foolishness – other little brats being mean or the like. I told him to suck it up.”

“That would have been a short conversation.”

“Clearly you don’t know teenagers. They like to argue. Jay never did know what was good for him. Then again.” Nasira glances at a picture on the mantel, of a much-younger Jafar in his days as Vizeer, and her expression does something complicated. “Neither did Jafar. Like father, like son.”

“He never mentioned plans to go anywhere?” Phoebus says.

“No.” Nasira lays the picture flat, face down. “Though I can’t say I would have listened if he did.”

* * *

Genevieve’s mother proves elusive. So far it’s unclear if she escaped like Jafar, or is in hiding on the Isle. Apparently the flight of so many villains upset the Isle's delicate power-balance and there's a brutal, stealthy war going between those remaining, either trying to maintain power or usurp it. The security escort assure Phoebus they'll get a headcount once things settle down, but until then the former Queen remains officially missing. 

Cruella proves easy to find, not having left her house. 

“How could I leave my babies?” She says, seated grandly in an old chair that must have been expensive once, but was now faded and stained with the stuffing falling out. She doesn’t seem to notice, preoccupied with snapping her lighter under the cigarette clenched in the corner of her mouth.

“Babies?” Phoebus says, trying to remember if the file had mentioned Carlos having younger siblings.

“Yes, my beautiful furry babies.” She gestures impatiently at the open closet door where a collection of manky furs hangs. “I can’t leave them alone. Someone might come steal them, and there where would I be?” 

Phoebus glances at the officers standing nearby. One is watching the entrance, the other watching Cruella from behind with contempt curling his mouth. As they’d been professionally blank slates so far regarding everything on the Isle, Phoebus has to wonder what they know about Cruella to evoke this response.

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this,” Phoebus says. “But your son Carlos–”

“That brat!” Cruella whips the cigarette out of her mouth. “Don’t speak to me of that traitorous little monster. Making friends with a dog. Not giving it to _me_!” The sudden flare of rage is unsettling. So is the way it quickly dies, as she calmly takes a puff of smoke and says with a placid hint of a smile: “Just wait till he gets home.”

The hair on the back of Phoebus’ neck wants to stand on end. A lot of the notes by Carlos’ teachers are now making sense: _withdrawn, standoffish, possibly shy._ And most insightfully from the Coach: _has difficulty telling when he’s not in trouble._ Phoebus would bet he has difficulty, growing up around mood swings like this.

“About that,” he says. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that your son and his three friends have gone missing.”

He expects another flare of rage. It doesn’t come. Cruella blows a smoke-ring.

“Ms De Ville, I said –”

“I heard you the first time.” She taps ash off the side of her chair. “Brat’s finally grown some balls, has he? Taken off, just like his father. Typical.”

“We’re not actually sure what happened,” Phoebus says, then decides to float a second theory to see how Cruella reacts: “We’re worried that another villain might have taken them, perhaps one that escaped the barrier.” 

The woman just looks puzzled. “Who would want to take Carlos? He’s useless.”

“Perhaps as revenge against you –” He stops when she starts sniggering. When she finally composes herself he continues, annoyed at her indifference: “Is there any particular reason you think he ran away?”

She shrugs. “Why should I care what happens to the brat? He prefers flea-bitten mutts to his own mother.”

“When was the last time you spoke to him?”

“I don’t know. Some video conference thing. Ask Cindarella’s old hag; she set it up.” Finally Cruella seems to take a faint interest. “You said all of his little gang was gone? The fay, the whore, and the thief too?”

“Yes.”

“Well that would explain it.”

“What do you mean?”

She sneers. “You can’t have missed that their parents are all magic. Gods, they loved to lord it over me. Cruella, you couldn’t understand. Cruella, you know nothing about true power. Cruella, blah blah blah.” Another smoke ring through a vicious smile. “I listened to some of it though. Learned more than I ever wanted to about magic. So I know if you can trap a magic-user, you can harvest it. Even better if they’re young and untrained, all that power ready to burst, but none of the prickly defences.”

Phoebus starts to see why Cruella held her own on the Isle, despite being painfully erratic and one of the lesser known villains on the mainland. When she manages to focus for longer than a few seconds, there is a magnetic brilliance to her. 

“Any villains in particular who’d do that?” He says thoughtfully, tapping his pen. 

“Try asking who wouldn’t, the list would be shorter. Of course if I had to, I’d bet on that freak Mozenrath. He escaped last night, lucky prick and he just _loves_ sucking magic-users dry.” Cruella puffs on her cigarette and adds meditatively: “If it’s him Carlos is probably already dead. Mozenrath doesn’t have my patience with dead weight.”  

She tilts her head back, watching the smoke spiral lazily. Then, sensing Phoebus’ eyes still on her, she snaps impatiently: “Well? Are we done here?”

Phoebus closes his notepad. “We’re done.”

* * *

They pass Jafar’s house again on the way out, and Phoebus sees Jaed’s cousin sitting on the front steps, shuffling her cards. He stops the car and gets out.

“Jade, right?” He says. “I’m Captain Phoebus. I spoke with your mom before.” 

She eyes him, unsmiling. “I know you are,” she says, in that ‘ _how stupid to you think I am_ ’ tone of kids everywhere.

He tries to assume an unthreatening demeanour. “Sorry. I forget that kids notice things too. You’re Jaed’s cousin, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you two get along?” 

She looks a bit lost for a moment, as if trying to make sense of the question. Then she fans out the cards and says: “Tell your fortune, mister? Only a dollar.” For a moment it could be Esmerelda’s stories of her childhood come to life; a barefoot, dark-skinned little girl on a grimy Notre Dame street offering songs and card tricks to strangers for spare change. 

“Or,” Phoebus says, once he’s got his voice under control. “I give you two dollars and you tell me about Jaed.”

Her eyes gleam when he holds up the coin and she grabs for it. “Deal.”

However Phoebus has heard _all_ Esmerelda’s stories, so he holds it out of reach of her eager little fingers. “Payment comes after.”

She pokes out her tongue. “No fun.” 

“I’m a cop, it’s my job to spoil people’s fun. Now, tell me about Jaed.”

“Jay.”

“Sorry?”

“For starters, Jay doesn’t like Ja- _ed_. He doesn’t answer if you call him that.”

“Jay, then. What’s he like as a cousin? Is he nice to you?”

“He locked me in a closet once.”

Phoebus fights a frown. “Did he?”

“Yep.” She puffs out her chest proudly. “He said if I picked the lock in under an hour, we could have lollies.”

“You were in the closet for an _hour_?”

“No!” She scowls, offended. “It was eight and a half minutes. Jay timed it.” 

Phoebus relaxes a little. That sounds more like an eccentric training technique than a teenager picking on his cousin. Given Jay’s reputation as a thief, it’s probably quite logical to want to pass those skills onto Jade. Except for one small detail…“Why do you need to learn to pick a lock from _inside_ a closet?”

She looks at him as if he’s not too bright. “So if someone locks you in a closet you can get out again.”

Emphasises shift in Phoebus’ mind, taking on new implications. “Do you get locked in closets a lot?” He asks, as casual as he can.

She shakes her head. “Jay used to get locked in all the time, though. Once he was in a closet for nearly a whole day before Uncle Jafar remembered to let him out again.”

Nasira’s use of the word ‘obscene’ starts making a horrible sort of sense. 

“Did he do anything else?” At Jade’s wary look, Phoebus adds: “Some dads, when they get mad, they yell a lot. Or hit people.”

“He yells a lot,” Jade says after a moment. “But he doesn’t hit Jay so much now. Mom says it’s because Jay’s nearly a grown-up.”

“I see,” Phoebus says and he does. 

Jade looks up at him hopefully. “The money now?”

“One more question. Does Jafar ever hit you or your mother?”

Jade scrunches up her nose, thinking. "Mom and Uncle Jafar yell at each other a lot. And sometimes they throw things. Is that what you mean?" 

“Yes,” Phoebus says after a long, long moment. “That’s exactly what I mean. Thank you, Jade.” He flips her the coin and she vanishes down a side alley in a flash of dirty soles. It’s only after she’s gone that Phoebus realises he’d completely forgotten to ask her where Jay might go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if this is slow. I have a different stage planned for each chapter and right now Phoebus is getting as much background info as he can. We'll get back to the kids soon, promise!
> 
> And yes, Nasira knows perfectly well Jay and the others did a runner. Of course she's not going to tell; she's not an idiot.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phoebus continues his investigation at the school.

Phoebus is only on the Isle half a day, but it feels much longer. Returning to the green lawns and clear skies of Auradon, he has the same feeling he’d once had stepping from the grey dismal streets of Notre Dame into the luxurious furnishings of Frollo’s cathedral. A sense of emotional whiplash; surely both cannot be real. One or the other must be false.

He has little time to dwell on it though. He’s already late for his first interview at the school.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I got held up,” he says, unsettled by the calm gaze that seems to be unhurriedly weighing him against some unknown set of values. The silence stretches out and it's a relief when he finally gets an answer:

“Not a problem. Come on into my office. Excuse the mess, it’s a bit crazy around this time of season.”

That’s not an exaggeration. The office has an air of barely contained chaos; sports equipment stacked to the side, a sign-up schedule on the wall covered in scrawling signatures, the desk covered in partly filled out forms. It’s all oddly appropriate for the distractingly normal-looking man who makes them coffee and offers Phoebus the seat that isn’t piled high with tourney sticks.

“I imagine you want to talk about Jay and Carlos,” he says, setting the cups on the desk. “I didn’t have much to do with Mal and Evie I’m afraid. Neither of them were on the girls’ teams.”

“Actually…” Phoebus pauses, mildly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, what do you prefer to be called?”

That gets him a second assessing look and a warmer smile. “You can call me Coach. All the kids do.”

It’s not a name, but Phoebus knows enough about magical culture to know there’s a reason for that, just as there’s a reason the school stationary uses the clunky impersonal mouthful of Fairy Godmother and that all her daughter’s paperwork says Jane Doe. 

“Coach, then,” he agrees. “I wanted to talk to you about the school wards. I understand they protect the grounds, but I’m unclear on how that works, or how someone would manage to get past them to take students.”

“That depends on how they went about it.” Coach settles behind his desk, moving a net of basketballs out of the way. “Generally the wards are keyed to Fairy Godmother’s presence. So long as she’s on campus, the school is protected from any threats against the students. Whenever she has to leave, they’re keyed to myself or other members of staff with magical abilities."

"They're keyed to you now?" 

"Ever since Fairy Godmother left for the coronation ceremony. It doesn't really matter though, the level of protection is the same. You could throw a dragon at the wards, and it wouldn’t get in.”

That's a great deal more thorough than Phoebus was expecting from the school that's supposed to be the shining light of a magic-free future. “Beast knows about this?" He asks, and Coach raises a sardonic eyebrow. 

“Auradon’s future leadership resides here. Beast might not be fond of magic, but he’s no fool when it comes to security. The school is probably the safest place in Auradon.”

“Alright. So say for example if Maleficent had come to the school - ”

“She’d never have gotten past the front gate. Not by flying or by foot or even by tunneling under. However," and here Coach grimaces every so slightly. "It’s not foolproof. Theoretically, if Maleficent didn't intend harm - if she truly and sincerely believed it was in her daughter’s best interests to remove her from the school and wasn't going to hurt anyone while doing so - the wards wouldn’t activate. Or, more likely, she could convince someone who felt that way to do it for her."

That is not good news. Phoebus had been hoping for something more specific, like a window of time when the wards were down or a place that wasn't protected; something that would tell him when or how the kids had been taken. If they were taken. 

"What about non-magical security?" He asks. 

"Jay and his friends have proved adept at getting around them. If you want my opinion, that's where your answer lies. Either the kids ran away, they were lured out, or were taken while they were on one of their excursions off-campus."

"I thought students aren't supposed to leave school grounds." 

"They didn't exactly ask for permission." Unexpectedly Coach smiles; a flash of amusement that makes him look younger. "We knew they were sneaking out, but they were discrete about it and they were always where they needed to be at the proper time, so we decided to give them the space to explore on their own terms. They always came back." His smile fades. "Until now, anyway." 

Phoebus decides not to push on that point. He doesn't exactly disagree; given what he'd seen on the Isle and what he suspected of the kids' upbringing, heavy-handedness was just going to make them see Auradon as the enemy. And if Jay was any indication, they were well-practised in how to resist or subvert controlling authority figures. Keep a gentle hand on the reigns however, and a reason to stay - like, say, a place on the team and an arena to show off natural talent - and they'd adapt of their own free will. 

Unfortunately, it did make his own job harder now, as he has no idea what they might have been doing in those missing hours. 

"Do you know where they were going?" He asks without much hope. 

To his surprise, Coach nods. "They never left the city. Mostly they just seemed to be exploring. Museums, parks, libraries... once they spent a few hours in an all night ice cream parlour. We had to pretend not to know why they were sick the next day." 

"How did you know where they were going? Ankle monitor?" 

"Better. Magical signatures. I was never able to get a read on Carlos, but the other three were easy. Especially Mal and Jay; they leak magic like a sieve. And before you ask, I already tried looking for them. It was the first thing I did when Lacey told me they were gone. Either they're being hidden or they're out of my range." 

Damn. There goes any easy answer. Then again if the school could easily locate them, they wouldn’t have called the police.

"Is there any way to, I don’t know, boost the signal?”

That earns Phoebus a mildly amused, vaguely admonishing look. "They’re magic users not radio stations. The only way to make them more discernible is if they cast a very large spell and that’s the _last_ thing you want them doing.”

Phoebus notes the emphasis on the final sentence. "Because they'll make a mess?" He guesses. 

“Because they’ve lived their entire lives within the Barrier." Coach is very serious now. "When I say Mal and Jay leak magic, it’s not a metaphor – it’s entirely literal. They have no control, none of the training that fay and djinn should get in their infancy. If they try anything bigger than the very basics, they could hurt themselves.” 

"Obviously, since they're just starting out -"

"I'm not talking about accidentally turning your hair green or setting fire to the carpet. Those are the sort of mistakes any beginner will make. I mean the magic itself will injure them because they've no means to channel the backlash. Without a focal point or familiar, the magic will try to return to its point of origin. Evie will probably be fine - she doesn't have the power reserves yet to do more than give herself a migraine - but Jay and Mal are descended from beings _composed_ of magic. The risk of fatal backlash is significantly higher." 

From the way Coach speaks, Phoebus suspects this is the point he's been building to all along, that this is something that's been weighing on him a while. 

"You said fatal?" He says, and Coach nods, expression drawn. 

"Potentially. The bigger the magic, the bigger the backlash. It's part of the reason I've been running Jay ragged in tourney - physical exercise is a safe way to disburse excess magic. Mal had figured out how to channel hers into small bursts, so we were less worried about her." 

Phoebus decides not to ask what 'short bursts' means. "But Auradon gives classes on magic," he says. "It's in the curriculum. I know because I had to sit through parents bitching about it every other PTA meeting when my kids were in school. Why haven't Malady and Jay started training already? It should have been the first thing offered to them once they set foot off the Isle."

He's surprised - and chilled - by the flash of real anger that flashes through the Coach's eye and is gone again a moment later. “Fairy Godmother and I explained the situation," the man ( _not a man_ ) says with careful control. "Beast wouldn’t allow it until they’d passed Remedial Goodness.”

“Remedial – ? Did he understand what the consequences were?"

"He felt the risk was negligible, that they wouldn't be so foolish as to attempt strong magic by themselves."

Phoebus doesn't know what to say to that. No, wait; yes he does. "He has _met_ teenagers, right?"

Phoebus has raised two sons and one daughter, and he knows teenagers - particularly teenager boys - come with a default compulsion to do stupid shit. If you gave them a button labelled "don't press this" they'd press it just to see what would happen. Of course Beast's standard of teenager was _Ben,_ whose idea of rebellion was 'issue a mildly controversial royal decree', so it is entirely possible he doesn't realise this. 

"Sometimes I wonder," Coach murmurs, so quietly that Phoebus nearly doesn't hear it. 

Phoebus sighs. "Okay, at least tell me that they took you seriously when you explained all this." Maybe their growing up on the Isle was a kind of advantage. They'd have more respect for action and consequence than most kids their age, so even if they didn't completely refrain, at the least they'd be very careful...

Coach hasn't answered the question, and Phoebus realises resignedly: "...Beast told you not to tell them, didn't he."

A very slight curl of the lip. "He didn't want them getting the idea that Remedial Goodness came with a reward." 

_Of course he_ _didn't_ , Phoebus thinks tiredly.It's a very _Beast_ idea. Morally high-minded rhetoric that's good in theory and less so in practise. 

“All that aside," he says with a sigh. "What are the odds of someone targeting them because of that magic?”

This time he is not surprised by the look of very old anger that passes across Coach’s face. 

“High. Fay, even half-fay like Mal, can be tricked into terrible bargains if you get the wording right. A number of blood magic spells require the organs or life of a young talented woman like Evie. And Jay is exceptionally vulnerable, given his heritage. Inexperienced djinn are easy to bind, if you catch them young.” Coach absently rubs a thumb over one wrist, as if tracing the shape of a long-ago cuff.

* * *

Ultimately the interview with Coach tells Phoebus a great deal without helping much. He asks Coach to send him a list of the places the kids had gone while off-campus, but isn't overly optimistic it will reveal anything. If the kids were still in range, Coach would have found them already, and surely any kidnapper would be smart enough to take them out of the city by now.

He's more hopeful about the next interview, held in an empty classroom put aside for this purpose. 

“Li Longwei?” He says as the student enters. 

The tall pretty girl winces. “Lonnie,” she corrects. “Longwei is a boy’s name.”

Phoebus glances at his notes, wondering if Lacey had fetched the right student. “Sorry, I was looking for a Longwei –”

“No, that’s me. My parents gave me a boy’s name. It’s a really long, boring story. Basically they wanted to name me after an old friend of theirs and there was a mistake on the ultrasound, and when I came out they figured screw gender-roles anyway.” The girl says it in the faintly exasperated tones of someone telling an embarrassing story for the thousandth time. “I go by Lonnie. I suppose it could be worse though – my mother called herself Ping when she was pretending to be a boy.” 

Phoebus carefully conceals a smile, wondering if she ever commiserated with Jay over unwanted names. “Nice to meet you, Lonnie. I’m Phoebus.”

She graces him with a lovely smile, that fades quickly into a more serious expression. “I guess you want to talk about Mal and the others, right?”

“That’s right. I know you already spoke to the detectives earlier, but we just want to clarify a few details. Now your parents have given permission for us to speak to you without them, but Miss Lacey is going to sit in. Is that okay?”

“Sure. I don’t mind. Whatever you need.” Lonnie pulls up a chair and gives Phoebus a look of attentive helpfulness. Not much like her mother, he thinks. He’s met the woman a few times and the last thing you could call her was subservient. But then, looking at Lonnie’s Auradon-style clothes and hair, he suspects she might have deliberately distanced herself from her mother’s legacy.

He takes a seat, opening up the folder containing Lonnie's statement. To the side, Lacey has also sat down, hands folded in her lap as she listens in.

“So, Lonnie," Phoebus says. "According to your earlier statement, you hadn’t seen Malady - I'm sorry, Mal - or her friends since Friday morning. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

Lonnie nods, eyes wide and guileless. “I’m sure.”

“Because I also have a statement from Ben’s driver that you brought him a message from Mal on _Saturday_ morning, just before the coronation, saying that she wasn’t coming.”

He watches Lonnie’s expression carefully. She doesn’t seem upset or guilty at being caught out. If anything she looks faintly puzzled.  

“… do you mean the cupcake?” She says after a moment.  

“Cupcake?” Phoebus echoes, sure he’s misheard.

“The one that Mal left in my locker. It had Ben’s name on the box, so I ran straight over before the carriage could leave to give it to him.”

“Was there a note with it?”

“I don’t think so – I didn’t really look. I knew it had to be Jay who left it there though because Jay was the only person who could break into my locker, which meant it had to be from Mal. I don't think Jay has any reason to give Ben cupcakes.” A thoughtful beat. "That I know of." 

It has the ring of honesty, to Phoebus' disappointment. He'd hoped that the kids were just lying low somewhere after the coronation and Lonnie was keeping it to herself for whatever reason. Still, it might help narrow down the timeframe of the kids' departure. "What happened to it afterwards?" 

"Ben asked me to keep hold of it and give it to him after the coronation. Then Maleficent attacked and I - well, I must have lost it during the confusion." Lonnie looks down. "I feel bad about that." 

Damn. Their best clue and it's probably trampled somewhere into the church floor with the rest of the debris, along with any notes it may or may not contain. 

“Why didn’t you mention this before?” Phoebus says and Lonnie blinks in surprise.

“Should I have?” She says, apparently in earnest. 

“It might have been the last contact anyone had with Mal before she disappeared, so _yes.”_

“Oh." Her mouth curls unhappily. "I didn’t think of that. I thought everyone would know anyway when she didn’t come to coronation.”

“What do you mean ‘everyone would know anyway’?”

“That Mal broke up with Ben.” 

“Hold up. You found a cupcake for Ben in your locker and concluded that meant that Mal was breaking up with him?”

 “Duh…?” Lonnie glances between the two adults and seems to realise they’re not getting it. “I mean, it wasn’t just the cupcake. This had been going on for a while.” For the first time a shadow falls across her sunny demeanour and she mutters: “People were awful to Mal about Ben.”

“In what way?”

“They said she was just a bad girl phase and he’d dump her once he got bored of her. Or that she’d manipulated him into dumping Audrey or, I don’t know, cast some kind of love spell. Stupid petty stuff like that. Audrey, I kind of understood – she had reason to be upset, even if she was horrible about it. But it wasn’t anyone else’s business even if they acted like it was.” 

Phoebus wishes he could say he's surprised. However shit rolls downhill, and kids pick up their parents' attitudes. You have the occasional shining exception like Ben, but for the most part, children will repeat and believe what their parents say. He feels a flash of pity for the half-fay girl who'd already had enough kicks in the gut to last a lifetime. 

“How did Mal handle it?” He asks. 

“Pretended like she didn’t care. And threatened to mess with the other girls’ hair if they kept messing with her.” A small smile touches Lonnie’s lips. “Mal didn’t take stuff lying down. I… I kind of admired that about her.”

Phoebus wonders if Lonnie knows how wistful that sounded. Maybe he was wrong about her deliberately distancing herself from her mother’s legacy. Maybe trying to fit in was about surviving a social jungle that wasn’t very forgiving of people who broke type.

“Mal doesn’t sound like someone who'd break up with her boyfriend just because of a few naysayers,” he points out gently, but Lonnie shakes her head, unconvinced.

“It all came out on Family Day. Did you hear about that?”

“That business with Queen Leah? Yes, I heard.”

“Yeah, well whatever you heard, it was worse. There was this lady yelling at Mal over stuff Mal hadn’t even been around for and none of the adults stepped in. Not the parents, not the teachers, no one. Chad stole Evie’s mirror – like actually ripped it out of her hand – and nobody _did_ anything.” There’s a bitter, disillusioned edge to Lonnie’s voice. “My mom says women should be allowed to fight their own battles, but there’s a difference between that and letting a guy take whatever he wants. Jay was the only one who stepped up, and Ben had to talk Chad’s parents out of pressing charges, like _he_ was in the wrong.”

Phoebus glances at Lacey who shakes her head, lips tight. “I didn’t hear that part,” she admits.

Lonnie huffs. “Yeah. Probably because it makes them all look a little less like the heroes they’re supposed to be. I don’t blame Mal for giving up. People didn’t want her here, and they _definitely_ didn’t want her going out with Ben. They were just looking for a reason to send her back where she came from.”

“Would it have been so bad,” Phoebus says carefully. “Going back to the Isle?” He’s fairly certain he already knows the answer, but he wants to hear it from Lonnie.

The girl’s expression hardens and she looks, for the first time, like her mother.

“I asked Mal once, if villains love their kids. You know what she said? Nothing. She just looked at me like I was crazy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for any OOC-ness with Lonnie. Phoebus' speculation is based on the difference between the very girly-girl character of movie one and the badass-in-waiting of movie two. We already know Auradon doesn't handle difference very well, so it makes sense to me that the VK's unapologetic attitude would be extremely attractive to a Lonnie who's spent her entire teenage years repressing and hiding what she really wants. In-canon, it's probably the reason for her sudden turn-around. 
> 
> I took the idea of the Coach's identity from Sweetbriar15's fic "sleight of hand (twist of fate)" which is like a million times better than anything I could write. 
> 
> And yes, we're getting back to the kids next chapter. Promise.
> 
> EDIT 12/05/18: I've made one little edit to the Coach's description of magical backlash. Just to be clear, they're not going to drop dead of one little spell. In fact, little spells like Jane's hair are a good idea; think of it like burning off. One small fire clears the ground and is easily controlled. But if you let things build up over time and then a fire breaks out... well, you have yourself a problem.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phoebus finally gets a lead. And we find out where the kids are at. 
> 
> Also, just a warning, there is discussion of sexual abuse in this chapter. Nothing explicit, and only in reference to past events, but it's there.

Chad Charming couldn’t be more of a contrast to Lonnie if he tried. He limps into the classroom, making pained sounds every time his bandaged foot touches the ground.

“Chad was hurt during the church attack,” Lacey tells Phoebus, with an expression like she is trying very hard not to roll her eyes.

“It’s just a flesh wound,” Chad says, sinking dramatically into a chair. “But at least Maleficent is no longer a threat.” From his tone, you’d think he’d personally defeated the fay in one-on-one combat rather than hurting his ankle while pushing and shoving to get through the fleeing crowd.

“Indeed,” Phoebus says dryly. “Do you think you’re feeling well enough to answer some questions?” He remains standing while Lacey takes a seat off to the side. He intends a very different approach from the one he’d taken with Lonnie.

Oblivious, Chad nods and says “I’ll try” in a way that probably meant to be feeble-yet-brave.

“Glad to hear it. Now I hear you had quite the vendetta with Mal and her friends.”

“You mean like enemies? Yeah, I guess we were. Someone had to call them out, since Ben wasn’t going to.” Chad sounds quite proud of himself. “Did you know they attacked me on Family Day?”

“The way I heard it you were the one to attack Evie.”

Chad blinks. “What?” He says indignantly, sitting up and dropping the ‘nobly soldiering on’ act. “Who told you that?”

“I have several witnesses who agree you stole her mirror. ‘Tore it right out of her hand’ are the exact words. Do you disagree?”

“No, but… She made it show my face! That’s like, an invasion of privacy.”

“Really? And your response was to steal from her?” While Chad is still figuring out how to answer that question, Phoebus continues in a pleasant tone: “How big would you say Evie is compared to you?”

"What’s that got to do with anyth–"

“Because I’d say she’s about half your size. And a girl. Some might consider what you did assault.”

Chad curls his lip and says snottily: “You can’t talk to me that way. My father’s king of Charmington.”

Phoebus affects surprise. “What way? I thought we were just having a friendly conversation. And as a friend, I’m telling you it will go a lot easier if you tell me what you did to Evie.”

"I told you, she was the one who attacked me!" 

"And now she's disappeared. Odd that." 

The colour - along with the self-entitlement - drains from Chad's face. He looks shaken, as if he's finally taking Phoebus seriously. “Woah, wait a second. You think I– ? I had nothing to do with that!”

“You openly despised her,” Phoebus points out mildly. “And you have a history of violence with her –”

 “Once! One time! And all I did was take her stupid mirror, and she took it back afterwards anyway.”

“How about Mal? You weren’t shy on your feelings toward her either. Strange how girls you don't like disappear." 

“I didn’t do anything! I didn’t like them, but I wouldn’t hurt them!” 

Phoebus studies Chad’s pale, frantic expression for a few long seconds. He believes him, if only because there is no way in hell that Chad could take on four Isle kids and come out the winner. It would be less surprising if he'd tried something and ended up stuffed in a locker for his troubles. That doesn't mean, however, that he isn't holding something back. 

“Alright,” Phoebus says, pulling up a chair. “Lets say you didn’t. Then what did happen between you and Evie?”

“Nothing!” At Phoebus’ expression, Chad added hastily: “Okay, okay. Yes, she did my homework for me a few times. But not because I threatened her or anything. She _wanted_ to do that. She liked me.”  

“She had a crush on you?”

“Yes! Ask anyone – ask Doug. She wanted to marry a prince.”

“How did you feel about her?”

“I don’t know. She was hot, I guess. But it’s not like she’s a real princess or anything, you know. Her mother married in.”

Phoebus pauses but Chad seems sincere, entirely oblivious to the irony of what he’s saying. “So how did things get from her crushing on you to you stealing from her on Family Day? What changed?”

Something flickers across Chad’s expression. His gaze slides furtively to the side. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Chad. You had the perfect arrangement; a pretty girl doing your homework, hanging on your every word, no effort required. Why upset that? It couldn’t have been her friends – Jay put the team on its winning streak, Mal dating Ben freed up Audrey for you, and if Carlos did anything offensive to anyone, I’ve yet to hear it. Arguably, the four of them made your life better, not worse. So what went wrong?” 

The boy hesitates, glancing at Lacey before finally answering: “The thing with Evie is, we kind of…did it, once.”

Colour Phoebus unsurprised. He’d suspected it since he read Doug Digger’s statement, and even more after talking to Lonnie. _Something_ had happened to change Chad from placidly encouraging Evie’s advances to violently repulsed by her.

“To be clear, you’re saying you had sex with Evie?”

“Just once. She came to my room with the homework, and we were alone, and she kissed me and… well, what was I supposed to do?”

“It was consensual?”

“Yes, of course!” Chad’s head bobs up and down in a frantic affirmation. “She was the one who suggested it. And she knew what she was doing.” His mouth curls in a ghost of a smirk. “Like she _really_ knew.”

Little shit, Phoebus thinks. If it wouldn’t smear Chad’s reputation as well, he probably would have spread it all around the school. “So her having previous sexual experience made you lose interest.”

“No, that’s not it. What happened was I asked her how she knew all the stuff she did, and she said...” Chad fidgets, lowering his voice. “… she said her _mom_ showed her.”

In the corner, Lacey has tensed, leaning forward as if she’d speak, gaze suddenly sharp. Phoebus shakes his head slightly, silencing her.

“You mean from a book?” He says to Chad.

“That’s what I thought. She said no, she _showed_ her.” Chad’s shoulders hunch, and he doesn’t look proud of himself this time. “It was all too weird for me. Like, what are you supposed to say to that? That’s why I reported her for cheating.” 

It takes Phoebus a moment to untangle that trail of logic. “You reported Evie for cheating so that she’d get sent back to the Isle and leave you alone?” He says incredulously.

“Yeah. And I figured if she told Audrey about us, then Audrey would think she was just trying to get back at me.”

It’s not often that Phoebus can be taken aback. He dealt with _Frollo_ , who blamed his own vices on others and sought to destroy what he couldn’t control. But even Frollo made an attempt to justify his own wrong-doing, even if it was by completely insane logic. 

“Let me see if I have this straight,” Phoebus says. “You suspected that your classmate – a girl with whom you’d been intimate – had been sexually abused? And instead of reporting this to the school or the police, you deliberately arranged for her to be returned to the same situation where it occurred?”

Chad scowls, not quite looking him in the eye. “Why was it my responsibility to do something? If there was something wrong, she should have said.”

 _The gods help us all, he’s going to be king oneday,_ Phoebus thinks.

“Did it occur to you that she was asking for help?”  He says coldly. “That she trusted you enough to confide a terrible trauma and instead of trying to help her or talk about it, you did everything you could to ensure it happened again.”

Chad’s mouth opens but no sound comes out. He looks like he’s going to be sick.

* * *

Phoebus questions Chad for another half an hour before accepting that he knows nothing about where the Isle kids went and would tell Phoebus immediately if he did, out of self-preservation if nothing else. Once the kid has fled the room – not limping anymore, Phoebus notes sardonically; what a miracle – Lacey turns to Phoebus and says accusingly: “You weren’t surprised.”

“That Chad slept with Evie? No, teenagers don’t have the most self-control and a kid like Chad–”

“Not that. About Evie and her mother. I saw your face. You weren’t happy to hear it, but you weren’t shocked either.” Lacey wrings her hands together once, visibly makes herself stop. “What did we miss?”

Phoebus considers fobbing her off with some story about always expecting the worst in people. However it’s a real question, not a request for him to alleviate her guilt so he answers it.

“Jay’s cousin told me Jafar used to hit him. It made me more alert to warning signs with the others. Everyone said that Evie sought out attention, that she flirted in ways that were inappropriate or unsettling for someone her age. It fit.”

Lacey stares at him. “Jay too?” she says faintly and Phoebus recalls that Jay had been in one of her classes.

“If it’s any consolation, no one else seems to have noticed either.”

“It’s not. It’s really, really not.” She runs a hand through her hair. “This is a nightmare. I’ll need to report to the school board and contact their embassies – ”

“Embassies?”

Lacey nods absently, mind elsewhere. “Since they were born on the Isle and France wouldn’t take responsibility, they were all declared citizens of their custodial parents’ respective countries. Some paperwork thing.”

That’s… very interesting. Phoebus folds that little fact away for later. It might prove useful, or it might not. 

“Back to the matter at hand,” he says. “I want to start talking to the other kids who were outspoken against Mal. Where’s the girl who didn't like Mal? Aura?”

“Audrey,” Lacey corrects. “Princess of Auroria. And she’s not here; her parents took her back them Saturday night.”

Damn. Extracting a statement from her in her own kingdom is going to be difficult, particularly given how touchy Auroria could be about villain-related issues. Still, at the very least she could say the last time she saw Mal. She lived in the same dorms as the girl, surely she could indicate if she’d seen her on-campus Saturday…

A few facts click together inside Phoebus’ head. Suddenly a glaring inconsistency is staring him in the face. Not so much a detail out of place as missing altogether.

“Lacey,” he says. “You know the layout of the campus. How far are the dorms from the lockers?”  

Lacey frowns in thought. “Fifteen minutes if you dawdle. Five if you sprint.”

“Right.” He gets out his phone and places a call to one of the assisting constables. “Do you have Mal’s phone records yet? Okay, good. I need you to check if she received any phone calls from this number…”

* * *

It takes about twenty minutes for Lacey to return with Lonnie.

“You wanted to ask me more questions?” The girl says, that same helpful look on her face.

“I need to clarify a few points,” Phoebus replies. “You said that you found the cupcake in your locker Saturday morning, and concluded based on your knowledge of Mal and Ben’s history that Mal was breaking up with him. Is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

“So why didn’t you check with her?”

Because he’s watching for it, he notes the faint pause before she answers: “I’m sorry?”

“Why didn’t you call her to double check? You have her number; her phone records show you’ve called and texted her in the past. So why didn’t you?”

Lonnie is silent for a moment before saying: “I didn’t have my phone on me. I left it in my room.”

It’s a good lie; one that’s impossible to prove or disprove. Unfortunately for her, Phoebus has already thought through the logistics.

“So why not get it? It’s only a few minutes away and could save Ben heartbreak and embarrassment if you’re wrong. Or, since you’re in the same dorm as Mal, you could have knocked on her door to see if she was in.” He holds out the statement. “Yet you say you went directly from the locker to Ben’s carriage, which was on the other side of campus, even further away.”

Lonnie stares blankly at the statement without touching it. “I guess I didn’t think of it.”

“You didn’t even try to find her afterwards, to see if she needed a shoulder to cry on? After breaking up with her boyfriend? After what happened to her mother on live television?” He pauses, but she doesn’t say anything so he continues: “It was pretty clever, distracting me by talking about how Mal was bullied. It didn’t even occur to me how strange that omission was until much later. So here’s how I think it went. Either you did check with Mal and are lying about it for some reason. Or you didn’t _because you already knew they were gone_. Which is it?” 

Lonnie is silent for a few seconds. Then in a low, angry voice: “Why can’t you just let them go?”

Something inside Phoebus that had been wound tight finally begins to relax. “So they did run away.”

She glares at him. “They didn’t do anything, you know. People just want to believe the worst of them because it’s easier than looking at themselves.”

“I know that, Lonnie –”

“Then why are you trying to find them? Beast will just send them back to the Isle, you know he will.” Lonnie digs through her handbag angrily and shoves a folded piece of lined paper at Phoebus. “Here. This is what I found with the stupid cupcake.”

Phoebus unfolds the note. In scratchy cheerful handwriting it reads:

**_Hey L, figured we should get out while we still can. They 're never going to let us stay and we aren’t going back  - J._ **

**** **_PS, your birthday is not a safe code, pick something else._ **

**_PPS, Mal says give the box to Ben. Really, super important. Don’t forget._ **

**_PPPS, srsly, change the code._ **

Jay certainly has a thing about girls and locks, Phoebus thinks. Either making sure they can get out of places they don’t want to be, or stop people getting in.

“Do you know where they went?” He asks, and Lonnie shakes her head, a stubborn tilt to her jaw.

“I don’t know, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

* * *

Jay wakes with Carlos gently shaking him.

“Come on, man. The train has stopped.”

Jay rubs sleep out of his eyes. It’s dark outside the window. Mal and Evie are getting their bags down out of the overhead compartments.

“Where are we?” Jay asks.

“Agrabah. We have to change trains.”

Jay yawns wide enough to feel his jaw crack and gets up to help Mal lift down a suitcase. The bags are mostly for show; they could have travelled with nothing but Carlos had pointed out anyone travelling without baggage would attract attention.

They’d done pretty well, Jay thinks. Between Mal’s spell book and Evie’s make-up case, none of them looked like themselves. Carlos’ hair is ginger and he’s wearing a t-shirt with the name of a band, and a fake earring. It makes him look weirdly older. Evie’s hair is blonde and braided back, with a pair of glasses perched on her nose (Jay has already called her a nerd and been punched in the arm for it). Mal’s hair now reaches halfway down her waist and is black, which oddly suits her, and her face is made up with crisp black eyeshadow and dark lipstick.  Jay felt he’d made the biggest sacrifice, his hair now short and spiky.

“Quit poking at it,” Mal says when she sees him touching it again. “I’ll fix it once we’re out of Auradon.”

“You’d better.” He feels unsettlingly naked without the weight of his hair whenever he turns his head. He keeps going to push it back over one ear and realising that it’s not there anymore.

Still, he feels way better than he did twenty-four hours ago. He hadn’t realised how tightly wound he’d become, until suddenly they were free of the whole mess. No more counting off the days until the coronation, no more watching Ben waiting for the spell to fail, no more living in a cold sweat thinking that every day would be the last one off the Isle. It’s a rather freeing realisation; that it hadn’t been Auradon he’d been in love with so much as the fact that it wasn’t the Isle. _I can go anywhere,_ he thinks. _I can handle anything, so long as it’s not that place._

On the train platform, their passports are checked by a yawning immigration officer. Jay holds his breath, but it seems that Mal’s spell on the photos holds intact and they pass through without comment. Carlos is the one to ask what platform the Getzistan train is leaving from.

“Platform nine,” the man says, handing back the passport. “But there’s been a delay – it won’t be boarding for another two hours.”

“Two _hours_?” Jay had really hoped to be safely across the Auradon border by then.

“Sorry. Signal delay just out of the city. I’d go have a coffee and stretch your legs. It’ll be a while yet.”

In the end, they do as suggested, heading upstairs to the little collection of shops that are open above the platform, populated by sleepy, hollow-eyed travellers. Carlos and Mal lay claim to a table in front of an enormous glass window looking out over the city while Evie curls up in one of the comfy chairs and dozes off, and Jay goes to order from the coffee shop. The attendant, intrigued by Jay’s accent in Arabic, strikes up a conversation and Jay has to bullshit his way through a story about growing up in Andalasia and his father being from Agrabah. It gets them a discount at least.

Back at the table, Carlos asks curiously: “What did he say?”

Jay sets the coffees down. “Wanted to know where I was from. He could tell I wasn’t from Agrabah.”

That bothers him a little. His Arabic accent had been the bane of Jafar’s existence, but Jay had always assumed it was because he spoke it like a commoner. Among the kids of the Agrabah quarter, trying to sound polished was a good way to get your arse kicked. But apparently Jafar was right; he’d been speaking it wrong this whole time.

Carlos, oblivious to Jay’s turmoil, says: “We’ve got a couple of hours to kill. Do you want to go take a look at the city?”

“Not really.”

 “Yeah, I guess it’s too much of a risk. They’re probably looking for us.”

“Almost definitely.” Ben in particular, now that the spell would have been removed. People who’d been humiliated were most dangerous; they were always the ones had something to prove.

Jay tries to put it out of his head and enjoy the view. Outside the window, night-time Agrabah is rather peaceful to look at. Unlike the Isle, there is no limit on electricity so there are no rolling blackouts, and the effect is like a sea of little white lights against a dark shadowy backdrop. Kind of pretty.

Carlos stretches and heaves a contented sigh. “When we reach Getzistan,” he says. “The first place I’m going is a casino.”

“A casino?”

“Yeah, man. Did you not look it up? Getzistan is _all_ casinos. That’s how they bankroll the kingdom. I’m going to play on one of those little slot machines and get in on a poker game and see the pirate ship–”

Mal, who’d been nursing her coffee and staring off into space, twitches. “What pirate ship?”

“Chill. It’s not a real ship. It sinks every evening and there’s singing and dancing, and fountains and stuff.”

Jay shakes his head in wonder. In his experience, pirates meant Uma’s crew – or worse, Hook’s – and that never went anywhere good. “If you say so.”

“You’ll see. What do you want to do when we get there?”

“Dunno. I haven’t really thought about it.” He’d voted for Getzistan because it was just close, outside of Auradon, and relatively easy to get into with all the tourists coming and going.

“You’re no fun. Mal?”

“We’re not going there for fun, Carlos,” she says a bit snappishly. She looks as tired as Jay feels; almost as tired as Evie. Under her make-up, there are dark circles under her eyes and her fingers are trembling when she lifts her coffee. “We need to worry about getting there and think about fun later.”

There’s a short, awkward silence. Then Mal breathes out and says grudgingly: “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well.”

“It’s okay,” Carlos replies.

Jay feels a bit bad. Carlos is the only one of them who seems to have gotten enough sleep and is now bearing the brunt of their bad tempers.

 “They got rides?” He asks abruptly. 

“Maybe.” Carlos thinks about it and nods. “There’s a theme park on the edge of the city. You want to go on one of the rides?”

“Roller-coaster. Always wanted to go on one.” 

“Okay, we can do that.”

Evie jerks suddenly awake, sitting bolt upright in her chair. None of them move, letting her take stock of her surroundings.

“Greece?” She says blearily after a few seconds.

“Agrabah,” Mal says, and nudges Evie’s coffee in front of her where she can see it. “We’ve got another hour or so yet.”

“Right.” Evie removes the glasses and rubs her eyes. “I wish I could lie down properly. I keep having these awful dreams about my mom…”

Mal’s hand nearly misses reaching for a napkin. “Yeah,” she says after a second. “Me too.”

“My dad,” Jay says, when it looks like no one is going to say anything else. He looks at Carlos, but Carlos shrugs.

“Don’t look at me. I slept like a baby.”

“Jerk,” Evie mutters with a smile. She sips at her coffee, winces at the taste. “Is there any sweetener?”

“I’ll get some.” Jay stands up and arcs his back. “I need to stretch my legs anyway.”

“I’ll come with,” Mal says, rising to follow. They fall into step together as they wander back to the coffee shop. He knows, just as Evie and Carlos do, that this is Mal’s signal she wants a private talk.

He waits until they’re out of earshot before saying: “What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask you something. About what Nasira said to you.”

It’s only the fact they’re alone in enemy territory that keeps Jay from veering away and running from this conversation altogether.

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“I just want to know what it was like.”

“Gods Mal, can’t this wait?”

“We’ve got time until our next train. Why not now?”

Jay can’t think of a good reason and it makes him grumpy. “I don’t know. It was like being king hit. I didn’t see it coming.”

“Not that. I mean, in general. Was she…different from Jafar?”

What Mal’s really asking, though she doesn’t come out and say it, is what was it like to be loved. Jay feels completely unqualified for that question. He hadn’t even known he was loved until two days ago. How can he explain something he doesn’t understand himself?

“Yeah,” he says reluctantly. “I mean, she never hit me.”

“Evie’s mom didn’t hit her either. If you list all the stuff Nasira _didn’t_ do, we’ll be here all night.”

“Are you telling it, or am I? I’m trying here.”

“Just tell me stuff she _did_ do.”

Jay huffs an annoyed breath. “I don’t know, Mal. Really I don’t. There wasn’t any one thing I could point to that was different. It was a lot of little things.”

He’d always known that Nasira was more reliable than Jafar when it came to supplying meals and making sure Jay’s clothes fit him, but he’d assumed it was because Jafar was stuck in his obsessions while Nasira was the definition of practicality. Jay was her nephew, therefore he represented her, therefore she was invested in his success or failure. Logical. Straightforward. Except apparently it wasn’t.

“What does it even matter?” He continues brusquely. “It’s not like I’ll ever see her again.” 

“It matters.” Mal has stopped walking now, and Jay stops too, standing in front of the nearly-empty coffee shop. Mal is looking blindly into the distance. “I keep thinking, if your aunt loves you, then maybe –” She stops, but Jay knows what she was about to say. _Maybe my mom loves me too._

Fuck. Why does he have to be the one having this talk? Evie would know what to say. Carlos too, probably.

“It’s stupid, I know,” Mal continues. “Now more than ever. But it’s where my head keeps looping around to.”

Feeling helpless, Jay tries to think of something comforting to say. Or at least something that wouldn’t outright hurt her. Finally he falls back on uncomfortable honesty.

“If she loved you, she wouldn't have asked you to steal the Wand.” Mal flinches, turning away, and Jay thinks _fuck it_ , and stops her with a hand clasped loosely about her wrist. Maybe having someone say it to you, means you can pass it on. “It's her loss. You know that I, that all of us, we lo… ”

He stops when he realises she’s no longer listening to him. She’s looking past his shoulder, lips parted, face pale under the thick layer of make up.

“Mal?”

She brushes past him, walking into the shop to where the tv above the counter is playing news clips. On screen people are running and screaming from green fire as a familiar-looking church burns. A ribbon of words is playing across the bottom _‘…newly released footage of vicious attack on coronation…’_

The bottom drops out of Jay’s stomach. _Oh no._

The attendant looks up, smiles at Jay. “Hey, you’re back. What can I get you?”

Mal turns on him, a little wild. “When did this happen?” She demands, pointing at the screen.

The guy follows where she's pointing. “Oh, that,” he says in English. “I suppose you might not have heard, if you were travelling. The Barrier broke on Saturday night.”

“What?” Jay blurts out. “That’s impossible.”

“It’s what they’re saying. A whole lot of villains escaped.”

Jay knows what the words mean, he just doesn’t understand them. It doesn’t make any sense. They’d left before they completed the plan. They’d never even _touched_ the Wand.

“Which villains?” He demands, focusing on the part he does understand.

“I don’t know. They haven’t released the lists yet –”

“Did they say anything about Jafar?”

“Not yet. Maleficent got out though and attacked Prince Ben’s coronation.”

Jay’s mind flashes to all those royals crammed into the one place, ripe for the taking. Ben would have been right up front, with his parents. And Doug and Aziz and Lonnie…Shit, _Lonnie_. Jay hadn’t even said good-bye, he’d just left her a stupid note nagging her about fixing her locker code. Maybe she’d made it though; she was smarter and tougher than most of the royal kids combined, surely she’d have had the sense to run…

His horror must transmit itself without words because the attendant says hastily: “Don’t worry, Fairy God Mother stopped her.”

Relief washes over Jay. Of course Fairy God Mother would have stopped Maleficent. Why wouldn’t she? She’d done it once already and she’d have had the Wand right there.

“So Maleficent's back on the Isle?” Mal demands, relaxing a fraction.

“No,” the attendant says and adds in a tone that’s probably meant to be soothing: “She’s dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oddly enough Getzistan is a real place in the Disney-verse. In the Aladdin tv series, it was a country neighbouring Agrabah that was essentially Las Vegas. And I could not resist having the kids run away to Vegas. 
> 
> I had real trouble naming the kingdom Audrey was from - Disney doesn't seem to have a name for it and the culture/clothing/castles are all over the place. So finally I went with Talia which is the name of the princess in Perceforest which is the earliest written version of Sleeping Beauty.
> 
> EDIT 19/05/18 - Thanks to CamilleNicolle, I found out Audrey's kingdom is called Auroria (apparently my research skills suck) so I've updated to amend that. In my defence I almost had it right? I just went with the name of the wrong princess.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! The good news is I learned a valuable lesson; if you spend a month trying to make a scene fit and it still won't fit, maybe it's not meant to.
> 
> Also - this might be getting into spoilers, but I feel I should warn that there's a seizure depicted in this chapter. I left the physical description of what's happening pretty vague, just fair warning if that's something you'd prefer to avoid.

It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion, powerless to stop it.

“Maleficent’s dead?” Mal says, barely above a whisper.

The attendant nods. “It’s all over the news. They’re saying they’re not bringing her back this time either… are you alright?” He peers at Mal, who’s gone dead white under her make up.

Jay thinks quicker than he has his entire life. “She has family in France,” he snaps, slipping an arm around Mal’s waist and turning her away from the counter. “You couldn’t have broken the breakout to her a little better? Come on, Mal. You need to sit down. You’re in shock.”

He ignores the guy’s apologies as he half-helps, half-forces Mal into a nearby chair, her back to the curious gazes turned their way.

 “Mal?” He sinks to one knee and gently shakes her, freaked out by the way her eyes have gone glassy and strange. The last time he saw her look this bad, Harry Hook had just got in a lucky strike and only the Barrier kept her from bleeding out. “Mal, _look_ at me.” He resorts to snapping his fingers in front of her face.

“My mother is dead,” she whispers finally and he nearly shudders in relief.

“I know. I know. But you have to keep it together.”

She doesn’t seem to see him. “I dreamed of it. The church. Green fire. I saw her die…”

"Just a nightmare," he says firmly, squeezing her hands. "Mal, look at me. It was just a nightmare. You couldn't have known." 

Finally her gaze focuses on him. "Did you?" she says in that cold, level tone that usually precedes her stabbing someone in the kidney.

"What?" He shifts back on his heels warily, but her nails are digging into the leather of his wrist-guards.

"Did you know?" She hisses, eyes glowing emerald green. "The timing is all very convenient, _Jaed_. Did Nasira tell something to the nephew she _loved?"_

The desire to answer is an insistent pressure on his brain. It’s an effort not to open his mouth and blurt out “no, of course not”. It would be the truth anyway, and what he’d say if she’d just asked. He has no idea what their parents might have been plotting behind their backs. 

But this – the emerald-green _push_ – is breaking one of their tacit agreements, dating all the way back to their initial alliance when they were children. She didn't use this on him and he didn't give her a reason to. 

He doesn’t bother pushing back. He knows from watching Maleficent that fighting will just burn out his resistance faster. Instead he turns his attention to that weird sensation of mental pressure, examining it, trying to find a weakness or fissure to exploit. Almost immediately he realises that it’s like a puzzle; solid at first glance, but actually made up of many complex pieces. A puzzle… or a lock.

He knows locks.

It’s almost instinctive what he does next, like the moment the tumblers turn and a door clicks open. That emerald green push flickers out, pressure vanishing, and he’s able to stand, putting physical distance between them.

"You're being paranoid, _Malady_ ,” he snarls.

"Am I?" She lunges out of the chair, shoving him back a step, eyes burning like green fire as she _pushes_ him again. But he knows what to do now, and it’s easier the second time to pick it apart. "You tell us to leave and two days later the Barrier is down and my mother is dead!" 

"I don't know anything about that!" 

"Liar!" She slaps him; and that's what wakes him up to what's really going on. If Mal wanted to hurt him, she wouldn't bother with her bare hands; she'd go straight for a knife or weapon. This ineffectual slapping is something like an Auradon princess might do; more likely to piss off an opponent than make them back off. 

He catches her next slap, imprisoning her hands between his and yanking her close before she can kick him in the shins. "I'm not going to hurt you, Mal. You want to hurt yourself, fine. Let them send you back to Ben and see what he does to you. But don't expect me to do it. I'm not my gods-damned father." 

She glares at him, lips curled back from her teeth in a snarl. "Let go of me," she hisses. He cautiously releases her wrists, but she seems to be over the hysteria because she doesn't go for his eyes or try to kick him in the groin. Thank the gods. He doesn’t know what he’d do if Mal of all people freaked out–

Something shatters close by.

Jay looks up and realises they're the centre of attention. The attendant is staring at them like he’d seen a ghost, a shattered mug at his feet. So are the three men down the back, and the family at a nearby table. The teenage daughter has her phone out and is filming.

Cold sweat breaks out in the small of Jay's back. Shit, shit, _shit_. 

Mal's eyes are huge and horrified. "Sorry," she says, edging toward the door. Jay follows, keeping between her and everyone else. "We just... sorry..."

A murmur of conversation rises in their wake ( _“Was that…” “Did she say what I…”_ ) and Jay hurries to keep up as Mal walks swiftly toward the big window where they'd left the others. “They heard," he says. 

“I know,” Mal hisses.

It won’t take long for them to put it together, if they haven’t already. Even with her hair dyed black, Mal looks too much like her mother to fool anyone looking for a resemblance. Jay will take longer because he doesn't look like his dad, but eventually someone will think to look up the old pictures of Jafar's less famous sister. 

Panic is like white noise in his ears, washing out everything else. He feels a little sick. All that effort, all that preparation, for _nothing_. 

Carlos and Evie look up as they approach. "Everything alright?" Carlos says. 

"We need to go," Mal bites out. "Now." 

"What happened?" Evie says, rising to her feet.

"We got made," Jay snaps. He grabs his jacket from the back of a chair and shoves Evie’s handbag at her.

"I don't understand," she says, eyes huge behind her fake glasses. "We were so careful..." 

"I know," Jay says, feeling awful. He can’t admit to the magnitude of his and Mal's fuck-up. He can’t even think about it without feeling sick. “The Isle is all over the news. The Barrier fell." 

Carlos nearly drops his backpack. " _What?_ " 

Mal grabs his arm impatiently, pulling him between the chairs. "The Barrier fell, my mother is dead, and we are all completely fucked if we don't move _now_."

Evie doesn’t need any encouragement, accepting the hand Jay offers to help her around the table. He wonders if it’s too late to get her to change shoes. Heels are nothing but a damn hindrance when running, even though they’re surprisingly effective in a fight.

They're walking swiftly toward the escalators (hurrying without looking like they're hurrying) when someone behind them shouts: “You. Hey, you.”

Jay expects security guards, so it’s a surprise to see three men in regular clothes coming their way. They all look somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties; big solid guys with that over-muscled look you get from working in a gym as opposed to doing anything useful.

“Cops?” Carlos mutters.

“No, I saw them in the coffee shop,” Mal replies, eyes narrowed and wary.

Jay shifts to the front of the group. That’s his job, to take attention, to be the easily visible threat. “What’s up, guys?” Behind him, Carlos will be hunching his shoulders to look small and deceptively meek, Evie will be giving her best lingering ‘come hither look’, and Mal should have an expression of carefully cultivated boredom. (If she’s thinking straight, which is questionable at the moment.)

“Is she bloody Maleficent’s daughter?” One of the men jabs a finger at Mal. 

Jay drops any pretence of friendliness, smile vanishing as he steps between them. "Walk away,” he warns. 

“She is, isn’t she. Do you know how many people that bitch murdered?” The man’s face is scrunched up with anger. What kind of anger, is the question. Jay’s still accustoming himself to Auradon where anger is more likely to come out in words than fists or knives. If they let this guy say his piece, will he walk away? Jay would prefer not to fight if he can possibly avoid it, especially since they couldn't think of a way to smuggle their weapons past security and had to leave them in France. 

“Mal’s not her mother,” Evie says heatedly. “She’s not responsible for what Maleficent did.”

“That bitch put the crown prince in a coma!”

Evie falters and Mal says in a tone that gives away far too much: “Ben’s hurt?”

Jay’s distracted for a second. That’s his only excuse for not reacting fast enough.

Something slams into his cheek and the next thing he knows, he’s on the ground while someone tries to kick his ribs in. It’s not fun, but he knows what to do; curl up to make his stomach and chest harder to hit, while protecting his face with his forearms and waiting for –

“Get off him!” Evie comes out of nowhere, clawing at the guy’s face. Not little mincing scratches either; these are long lacquer-enhanced nails filed to sharp points and making a concentrated effort to gouge out eyes. The guy jerks out of reach, backhanding her with an angry “Stay out of it, you stupid whore”, but that’s fine, the distraction worked; Jay is on his feet again. 

His fist slams into the guy's chin with a satisfying crack. “Don’t you _touch_ her!” He punches again and again, not caring that the impacts jar up his arm or that his knuckles are stinging, nor even when a hit glances off his chin and his teeth dig into his lip and his mouth fills with blood –

 _“STATUE!”_ Mal’s voice shouts and emerald fire roars across Jay’s vision. Except this time it’s not aimed at him, skimming over him like a river diverging around a boulder. He barely has time to suck in a startled breath before it’s gone again.

In front of him, the idiot who'd punched him is frozen in place, one fist still raised. His eyes are rolling frantically, but nothing’s moving below his nose. Jay meets that frightened gaze just long enough to make him sweat, then spits bloody saliva on the tiles.

“Be glad we’re not on the Isle,” he says, and turns to see if the others are okay. His heart stops when he sees Carlos getting painfully to his feet, bright blood seeping down the left side of his face.

Jay runs over to help him up. “Fuck, man. Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Carlos glares at the second guy, also frozen mid-punch. “He was wearing a ring, cut my eyebrow. Looks worse than it is.” He wipes his hand on his shirt, then curses out loud at the red mark it leaves. “Fucking _hate_ head-wounds. They bleed like a bitch.”

Jay relaxes a little; Carlos is fine if he can swear. It’s when he goes blank and distant you have to watch out. 

“Evie, you okay?” No answer. He looks over and sees her staring wide-eyed at the three frozen men. “Evie.”

She doesn’t seem to hear him. “Mal,” she says in a voice barely above a whisper. “What did you do?" 

Mal, yanking her jacket out of the paralysed grasp of the third man, displays a mouthful of bloody teeth in a triumphant grin. “A spell Mom told me about. Thought it was worth a try.”

Jay looks at the outcome – three foes paralysed, minimal damage – and says: “I like it.”

Evie is shaking her head emphatically. “We’re not supposed to use anything that’s not in the book,” she says. “Mal, you know that. Our mothers _told_ us.”

“Fuck our mothers,” Mal snaps (which is a sign that she’s definitely not thinking straight; usually she’s more careful about her word choices than that). “They didn’t give a single flying fuck about us and you know it. They probably only said that to keep us under their – under their –” She shakes her head like trying to get rid of an irritating fly. “Does anyone else smell that?”

Jay opens his mouth to ask why she’s talking about _smells_ of all things, when she abruptly collapses.

“Mal!” Evie runs to her. Carlos yanks her back just as Mal starts thrashing.

“Don’t touch her, she’s having a seizure.”

“She’s going to hurt herself!”

“You’ll hurt her worse if you interfere.”

Jay figures they both have a point. He yanks off his jacket and bunches it up, shoving it under Mal’s head so she at least has something between her and the hard tiles. “What’s wrong with her?” He demands. 

“It’s a seizure,” Carlos says, looking at his watch.

“I got that. How do we _fix_ it?”

“We can’t. We have to wait until it’s over. Don’t distract me, I’m timing.”

“The spell, it has to be the spell.” Evie is half-a step from panicked tears.

“She’s done magic before and she was fine,” Jay objects. She’d done dozens of spells since coming to Auradon. She’d tried to mind-whammy him in the café literally ten minutes ago and she'd been fine.

“I told you, our moms told us not to do anything that wasn’t in the spell book! Maybe there was a reason for that.”

“She’s slowing,” Carlos notes, gaze flicking between the watch and Mal, whose thrashing has faded to twitching. “I think it’s almost over.”

Jay watches anxiously as Mal stills. Even so, he doesn’t dare touch her for several seconds after she stops moving, and then only to check her pulse and to make sure she’s breathing. For the first time in his life, he misses the Isle. If they were on the Isle, there’d be no question of her dying. The Barrier would force her back to life, no matter what her body wanted to do.

“Mal?” He says, trying to sound more certain than he feels. “Can you hear me?” Her eyes open a crack, but she doesn’t seem to be tracking, muttering something about Uma and fish. Jay looks up at Carlos and Evie for help. “What now?”

Evie wets her lips. “I could ask my mirror. Maybe it will –”

“I don’t think we have time,” Carlos interrupts. “Listen.”

A moment later Jay hears it too; the high-pitched sound of the approaching sirens. He’s watched enough TV to know what that means.

“Fuck today,” he hisses with feeling, leaning down and trying to get Mal to sit up. That just makes her roll over and groan for them to leave her alone. “Mal, listen to me, we can’t stay here. You have to get up. Mal, _get up_.”

She really doesn’t want to move, which makes him feel like a bastard as he forces the issue. It’s not until Evie joins his urging that Mal finally stops resisting and lets them pull her to her feet. She sways like she’s drunk so Carlos takes one side and Jay the other, and they support her between them.

He ignores the people watching from the sidelines and the camera phones pointed their way.

* * *

The first footage hits the internet within two minutes of the teenagers leaving the train station, uploaded by an impulsive thirteen year old with no privacy settings on her MageBook. It’s taken down half an hour later by the police, but it’s already gone viral. By morning the news stations will have picked it up and will be dissecting it ad nauseum.

The first Phoebus knows of it is two in the morning, when he’s roused from sleep by his ringing mobile. He fumbles around in the dark before flipping on the bedside lamp.

“Someone better be dead or you soon will be,” he growls into the phone. Beside him, Esmerelda groans and buries her head under the pillow.

“Detective,” an accented, unfamiliar female voice says. “I apologize for waking you. I am calling on behalf of Coach.”

“Coach?” Phoebus sits up, trying to clear his mind. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I’m his wife. My friends call me Eden. I take it you haven’t seen the footage yet.”

“What footage?”

“The kids have been spotted in Agrabah. My husband’s on his way now.”

Even half asleep, Phoebus knows there’s something wrong with that statement. “He can’t leave school grounds. The wards –”

“He passed the wards to me before he left.” The woman's tone is placidly unconcerned. “He said to apologize for the short notice, but it was important he get there as soon as possible. Once he’s in Agrabah, he’ll be able to track them down and sort out this mess.”

“How does he expect to get there this time of night? Even on a plane –” Phoebus’ sleep-frazzled thoughts abruptly snap into place. “He’s not taking a plane, is he.”

There’s a distinct hint of amusement in her answer. “Nope. He should be nearly there, if my calculations are correct.”

Phoebus closes his eyes, wishing he could go back to sleep and wake up with all of this nothing but a bad dream. One of the most powerful magical beings in Auradon casually abandoning his responsibilities and violating several borders while blatantly flouting the magic ban. Forget mess; this is a political _clusterfuck_.

 “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he says. “But I really, really wish your husband hadn’t done that.” 

“Heard that before. Will probably hear it again.” Still no real concern in her tone. Of course if rumor is correct, ‘Eden’ is no more human than her husband and equally capable of her own share of chaos. “He said – and you can quote me – if Beast doesn’t like it, he can consider it his resignation.”

* * *

Jay wraps his jacket about Mal’s shoulders. She’s curled up on the ratty mattress they’d found in the corner of the warehouse, eyes squeezed shut. 

“Head any better?” He says softly.

“Not since the last time you asked me that,” she says through gritted teeth. “Fuck. Why does everything smell green?”

“I don’t know,” he says, heart sinking.

“Well go get someone who does.” She rolls over crossly. “Get Mim. That old hag owes us enough favors."

He doesn’t have the heart to remind her they’re not on the Isle anymore. The last two times he’d reminded her, it just made her more confused and upset. Now he just goes along with whatever she says, even when it makes no sense. 

It’s hard to believe that two hours ago they were on their way to a better life outside Auradon. Now, holed up in an abandoned Agrabah building Evie found for them, he could almost imagine they were back home. Complete with the dust and condemned signs and discarded trash.

He leaves Mal to rest and walks carefully through the shadows over to where Carlos is paging through the spell book, penlight clenched in his teeth and Evie is whispering questions at the mirror. So far they’ve discovered that the magic mirror doesn’t grasp the concept of ‘why’. Asking why your friend had a seizure just makes it repeat the number 42 over and over again. Asking what was wrong with her just makes it spit out a stream of medical jargon none of them have a hope in hell of understanding.

“She’s getting worse,” he tells the others. “Have you found anything?”

Carlos makes a face, taking the penlight out of his mouth. “Nothing. This book is useless. There’s nothing in here about advanced spells.”

“Figures. Like our parents would trust us with anything that would give us real power.” 

“It might not be about power,” Evie says. “Maleficent might have booby-trapped the book to punish us if we disobeyed her.”

Jay starts to ask what the point of that would be, then considers what a control freak Maleficent was, and decides she might have something there. “So it might not be too bad then? If we just wait, it’ll wear off?”

Evie shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. There are too many possibilities. Did your father ever teach you anything about magic?”

“Jafar? Not a chance in hell. He hates talking to me about that stuff.”

“What about your aunt then? She was a sorceress too, right?” Evie looks up at him hopefully and Jay hates to disappoint her.

“No. I mean yeah, she tried to teach me some theory when I was little, but Jafar found out and burnt all her books so she didn’t do it anymore.”

One of the oddities of Jafar was that while he had no problems lashing out at his son and occasionally his niece, he had some sort of hang up about hitting his sister. Instead he’d direct his violence at her belongings or house or whatever happened to be in her vicinity. (Jay has a vivid memory of his father flipping a table over an escalated argument about the quality of the soup.)

“You don’t remember _anything_?” Evie says, face falling.

“Sorry,” Jay says, feeling completely useless. “How come you don’t know? I thought your mom was teaching you magic.”

“The basics. Love spells and beauty potions. Kiddy stuff.” Evie frustratedly shakes the mirror like it’s a magic eight ball. “Nothing useful. Nothing that _means_ anything. Even this stupid mirror–”

“Hey.” Jay reaches out, stopping short of touching her shoulder. “Maybe leave it for a while. We can come back to it later if we think of something.” He’s afraid if she gets any angrier she’s going to throw the mirror at a wall, and they can't afford to break any of their few assets.

Evie shoves it at him. “You take it. If I look at it a second longer, I’m going to scream.”

Jay doesn’t like touching the mirror - it buzzes weirdly, like touching Carlos’ computer when it’s running - so he shoves it in his pocket out of sight and tries not to think about it. 

Carlos closes the spell-book. “Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. Does it matter what’s actually wrong with her? We could just use a healing spell, let it work out the details.”

“There aren’t any healing spells in the book,” Evie says. 

“We could look one up in the mirror –”

“You saw what happened to Mal. Until we know _exactly_ what went wrong, we have to avoid repeating what she did. Besides.” And Evie’s expression is even more worried now. “Healing spells are _really_ advanced. We’d probably mess it up.”

Jay wonders how you could mess up a healing spell, then immediately regrets it as his imagination throws up all sorts of horrible ideas. If a healing spell was anything like surgery, then yes, there were a lot of ways to mess it up and only one way to do it right. And without the Barrier, there were no do-overs.

“No healing spells,” he says firmly. “What are our other options?”

Carlos drums his fingers on the cover of the book. “Regular medicine?” He says after a moment. “At least we could get her something for the pain.”

Jay looks over at Mal and makes an executive decision. “I’ll go find a pharmacist.”

“Dude, they’re looking for us–”

“They’re looking for four of us, and I’m the only one who stands half a chance of blending in. No offence.”

Carlos doesn’t like it. Neither does Evie. Jay has to waste several minutes refusing to be talked out of going. Then Mal interrupts by vomiting all over herself, and they stop arguing. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And I'm back! Apologies for the late post. I blame Carlos - he is very difficult to get a handle on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's some switching between languages. For simplicity's sake, everything's in English but everything that's in a language that the POV character isn't fluent in is italicized. For example, Jay is fluent in both English and Arabic so both are normal font, but Carlos is only partly fluent in French, so it's italicized.

Outside the warehouse, the streets are nearly empty. The few people that Jay sees look as if they’re up to their own kind of no good and are as keen to avoid notice as he is. The only trouble is from a guy who tries to mug him, but Jay’s been dealing with muggers since he was old enough to leave his father’s side and he’s not fooling around anymore.

“Is there a pharmacy around here?” He asks, holding the mugger’s own knife to his throat.

“Wh-what?”

“Pharmacy. Chemist. Herbalist. Wherever you Auradons sell medicine.”

“Um… maybe try up that way, near the shopping strip?” The mugger lifts a shaking hand to point.

“Thanks.” Jay takes a moment to examine the knife. It’s a flip-blade, the kind that can be folded back into the handle. “Nice weapon.”

“It’s yours.”

Jay smiles, wide and sharp. Finally an Auradon who gets Isle rules. “You tell anyone I was here –”

“I won’t. I swear.”

Jay steps back. “Go.”

The mugger doesn’t wait for him to say it twice, just bolts. Jay makes a mental note of the street he’s on; he wouldn’t put it past the guy to wait for him to come back, this time with bigger, meaner friends. He’s too tired and sore to deal with another fight tonight.

He starts walking in the direction the mugger pointed. He finds a strip of shops, most closed but a few still open, like an all-night laundry and a fast-food joint. No pharmacist. He stops on the corner, wondering what to do now. He doesn’t want to ask for directions; people tend to remember that this time of night. 

Then he remembers Evie’s mirror.

He pulls it out of his pocket, faintly annoyed that he’d forgotten it. He’d have left it with Evie in the warehouse if he’d remembered. Still, maybe it could be useful.

“Where is the nearest pharmacist?” He asks, holding it up to his mouth. “I mean, one that’s open now.”

Nothing happens, and he sighs. Figures it’s tuned into just Evie. Or maybe you need magic to operate it, which he doesn’t have. Whatever little talent he might have inherited from his parents probably withered and died behind the Barrier…

Or not, perhaps. The mirror’s surface ripples, fading into the image of a building with the words _‘Open 24 Hours’_.

“Um, zoom out. Show me the way.”

The mirror shifts again, and Jay starts walking. The mugger was right; the pharmacist is only one street over, just off the main strip.

Inside, it couldn’t be a bigger contrast to the Isle. There, the closest they had to a pharmacist was Mim’s herb shop, which sold squishy packages of dried herbs off creaking shelves that she occasionally deigned to dust. The only thing that kept people coming back was that her rate of success was marginally higher than her competitors.

Here, the shop is almost neurotically clean and brightly lit, with music playing softly in the background and baskets at the end of each aisle. The shelves have Jay lost within a minute. The packaging all looks the same and the medical terms confuse him. It doesn’t help that he’s exhausted. Now that the adrenaline has worn off, it’s an effort to make his gritty eyes focus on the small writing of each label.

The proprietor – a guy in a white uniform with a pink trim on his sleeves – gives him strange looks that makes Jay worry he’s been made until he glimpses his own reflection in a mirror beside the sunglasses rack. He’s coming up a nasty black eye, the bruise spreading across his cheekbone and temple like a wine stain soaking into cloth.

It makes him think of one time he’d found Nasira sitting at her kitchen table, staring into space. It had been after Jafar hit her with a thrown plate (accidentally, he said) and her bruised face had carried an unfamiliar expression of exhaustion.

 _“Are you alright, Aunt?”_ Jay had asked timidly.  

She’d looked at him for a long moment like she hadn’t recognized him, before abruptly snapping: " _Of course I am. Can’t I have a minute to myself, without everyone pestering me?”_ Then she’d given him a lemon-cake wrapped in a napkin, so he’d figured she couldn’t be too cross.

Years later, he’d realized she must have been a few months pregnant with Jade at the time. It bothers him, thinking of her sitting alone at that table, thinking whatever bleak thoughts put that expression on her face. If he ever gets the chance, he’ll ask her what they were - 

“Jay.”

Jay honestly thinks he’s hallucinating for a second, because he knows that voice and it shouldn't be possible that Coach is standing in front of the herbal supplements, giving him that same look of faintly exasperated concern as when a player has done something exceptionally stupid.

“Coach?” Jay says dumbly. “What are you doing here?” A moment later he realizes that in his exhaustion, he's slipped into his birth language and is just about to repeat himself in English when Coach responds, in dry, perfect Arabic:

“I used to live here. I could ask you the same question.”

“Uh…” Jay wonders if this perhaps is a hallucination after all. He did get hit pretty hard in the head earlier.

But if he were going to hallucinate Coach here, he’s pretty sure his subconscious wouldn’t picture him in a casual blue t-shirt over jeans without a single whistle or Turney stick in sight. He looks weird without them, and Jay realises this must be what Coach looks like outside of school hours.

Coach is still waiting for an answer, so Jay says the first thing that comes to mind. “…looking for aspirin?”

If this were Jafar, this would be where he smacked Jay across the head to knock answers out of him, but Coach just says: “Aspirin, huh.” His gaze lingers on Jay’s bruised face, his mouth tightening in some controlled flash of emotion gone too fast for Jay to read. “You know you’ll get better results with Nurofen and an icepack.”

“It’s not for me.” Jay glances down at the packet in his hand and puts it back on the shelf. It occurs to him that Coach isn’t an idiot and has to know that Jay shouldn’t be here, but he hasn’t raised the alarm and seems in no hurry to draw attention.

It’s a small, desperate thing to judge a potential ally on, but Jay’s running low on options. He decides to take a leap of faith. “Do you know anything about seizures?”

Coach gives him a sharper look. “Depends on the type,” he says after a moment. “There’s a lot of things that could cause a seizure.”

“Magic.” Jay wipes sweating hands on his jeans. “At least, maybe magic. If it happened right after someone did a spell.”

“Sounds like magical backlash to me.”  

The words tickle Jay’s mind, like he heard them somewhere before. Maybe in those long ago magic lessons, or eavesdropping on his father’s conversations with allies. “What’s that?”

“Have you ever heard the term, equal and opposite reactions?”

“You mean like physics?”

Coach nodded. “Same principle. Magic doesn’t like to be used. It pushes back. The bigger the spell, the bigger the push-back. Part of learning magic is learning how to avoid receiving that backlash.”

Jay wonders briefly how Coach knows that, then decides it’s probably one of those “common knowledge” things that everyone in Auradon thinks is so obvious it’s not even worth mentioning. And it would explain a lot, if he was right. Mal’s only ever done small stuff up until now; basic spells from the book or instinctual things that even the Barrier couldn’t smother. It was only when she went big that everything went to shit.

 “How do you treat it? Like, is there a tablet or medicine you take?”

“For mild backlash, yes,” Coach says slowly. “For backlash serious enough to cause a seizure… that’s beyond anything you’d find in a pharmacy.”

Jay’s fists clench. A pharmacy had been his best idea. All his other ideas (that he’d been careful not to voice aloud to the others) involve kidnapping a doctor and forcing them to help, which aside from all the practical considerations makes him feel slightly sick to his stomach. Maybe Chad is right and secretly he does enjoy it.

“How bad does it get?” He asks, figuring he might as well find out how drastic matters are before he does something he can’t take back.

“That varies. Every case is different.”

"Yeah, but you don’t die from it, right?" 

Coach doesn't return his smile. "You can," he says seriously. "In fact, there's an increasing number of teen deaths related to magical backlash. Mostly children whose parents chose not to have them trained. That's entirely legal, unfortunately." 

It feels like the world turns beneath Jay’s feet. Like motion sickness, or that moment you realise you’ve just missed critical footing above a thirty-foot drop.

He'd thought about Mal dying. But until now it hadn’t been entirely real. He's too conditioned to think of death as pain-management. He's put the knife to the throat of a few friends himself, to spare them the long-drawn out wait until the Barrier kicked in. Mal even did it for him once, after a fight with the Gaston twins left him with his guts hanging out. Sure it's not fun, but it's over quick and you get up again afterwards. 

For the first time, he really grasps what it might mean if Mal dies out here, away from the Barrier. That argument in the coffee shop could be the last conversation they ever have. That fight, the last. And no cold comfort that she was somewhere else living her life. Just gone. Stopped. Over.

And the last meaningful thing he ever said to her was that her mother didn’t love her. Would it have been so damn hard to lie?

Coach's hand squeezes his shoulder. " _Breathe,_ son." 

Jay sucks in air belatedly. He's shaking, his palms sweating, ice shooting down his spine; symptoms that he usually associates with small, cramped spaces. Maybe this is the same thing though. A problem with no way out.

“Mal’s sick,” he confesses. “I think it’s really bad.” He looks up at Coach, ready to offer anything, do anything, so long as he can fix this mess. “Can you help?”

* * *

Jay ducks through the hole in the warehouse wall and holds the board out of the way for Coach. He watches but Coach doesn’t seem to have any trouble either getting in or avoiding the rotten places in the floorboards.

Jay can hear Mal before he sees her. She’s curled up on the mattress and crying. Not sobbing, but the long, agonized moans of someone trying to be quiet but unable to hold it in. Evie is hovering helplessly while Carlos jumps to his feet when he sees Jay.

“Did you get–” He stills when he sees Coach behind Jay. “What is _he_ doing here?”

“We ran into each other.”

“And you just brought him here?” Carlos’ tone is sharp and brittle, his gaze fixed on Coach like the Isle alley cats when they spied a threat. If he had a tail, it would be lashing.

Coach ignores him, going straight over to Mal. Evie tenses, but all Coach does is kneel beside the mattress, asking: “How long has she been like this?” His tone, which has been calm up until now, has a new sharpness to it. Jay might have missed it, if he weren’t accustomed to analysing adults for any hint of strong emotion that might be directed at him.

“Since we left the train station,” Evie replies. “She’s been getting worse.”

“Is it that backlash thing?” Jay asks Coach, who doesn’t quite answer the question, his attention on Mal.

“Has she been lucid? Does she know where she is?”

“…no.” Evie laces her fingers together worriedly. “She keeps thinking we’re back on the Isle, or in France. And she says things that don’t make sense, like smelling colours.”

Jay, watching Coach closely, can tell that’s not a good answer. Coach guards himself well, but even he can’t stop that momentary flash of dismay.

“Mal,” Coach says clearly. “I know it hurts, but I need you to answer a question. What colours are you smelling right now?”

“Blue,” Mal grits out. “It was a little dark blue before, but now it’s light blue like the sky – gods please make it stop–” She makes a sound somewhere between a whimper and a scream.

“It’s going to be alright,” Coach says gently. “I promise. Just hold on a bit longer, alright.” He stands up and gestures for the others to follow him out of Mal’s earshot.

“Well?” Jay says.

“She needs a hospital.”

Carlos immediately shakes his head. “No. They’ll just send her back to the Isle.”

“Carlos this is serious,” Jay tells him. “Coach says people die from this.”

“And you believe him?”

“Carlos,” Evie hisses.

“No! Why are you trusting him?” Carlos glares at Jay. “You just coincidentally ran into Coach, four kingdoms over from where he should be? How does that make any sense?”

“He’s from Agrabah,” Jay snaps. “Of course he’s going to visit.”

“In the middle of term? It’s _bullshit_ , Jay, and you’d know that if you weren’t so giddy over him patting you on the head and telling you well done.”

“I may have been fired,” Coach interjects calmly. “Or quit. I’m sure I’ll find out which one in due course.”

He doesn’t sound particularly troubled by that admission, and Jay doesn’t quite know what to make of it. He searches the man’s face and body language warily, trying to find something he can pin his faith on…

Then Evie bursts out tearfully: “It doesn’t matter. He’s right, Mal’s getting worse, you know she is. We need to take her to the hospital. You guys can stay, if you want, I’ll go with her.”

“ _No_ ,” Carlos and Jay say at the same time. Their eyes meet, and abruptly they’re on the same side again. Because if there’s one fundamental thing they can agree on (and Mal too if she was conscious) it’s that Evie is _not going back_.

“Just give us a minute,” Jay says to Coach, and drags Carlos and Evie back over to Mal’s side of the warehouse. “I’ll go with Mal,” he whispers. “You two wait a day and make for the border.”

“Don’t be stupid –” Carlos starts, and Jay cuts him off ruthlessly.

“It was my idea to run, I brought him here. This is all my fault so I should do be the one to go with her.”

Carlos rolls his eyes. “No, I mean seriously, don’t be stupid. Me and Evie don’t speak the language, remember?”

Jay had forgotten that in his excitement. His heart sinks. “You could–”

“No, we can’t make it without you and that’s the point. We can’t even read the street signs.”

“So I’ll stay,” Evie interjects firmly. “Like I said I would.”

“Don’t be even stupider,” Carlos snaps, sounding like his mother for a moment. He glances behind him at Coach and lowers his voice again. “You think I’ll be any good to Jay out there? You’re the one who has magic.”

Evie flinches as if she’s been slapped, then her eyes narrow in that subtle way that means danger. “Like magic is any more useful than computers. You’re the only reason we got this far.”

“I can’t hack a border. Face it, I’m all tapped out.”

“So am I. I’m not anywhere near as strong as Mal. I can barely manage half the spells in the book.”

“Which is half more than Jay and I can manage!”

Jay remembers the weight of Evie’s mirror in his pocket and isn’t entirely sure of that. But now’s not the time to bring it up, because like it or not, he’s on Carlos’ side. As awful as Cruella is, there are some lines even she won’t cross, and one of them is what Queen Genevieve does to her daughter.

“Look,” Carlos says tiredly, rubbing his eyes. “I’m not trying to be the hero here. I’m really not. This is just how it is. Jay knows the language. You know magic. You both stand a better chance of survival together than with me, and I stand a better chance on the Isle than either of you.”

“That’s not true,” Jay objects on pure principal. “Jafar’s been getting better.”

“Shut up, Jay. The only reason he’s been getting better is because you’re getting bigger, and that’s not going to mean a damn thing if the Barrier’s down.”

Jafar with magic. Jay hadn’t thought of that.

He’d been aware of the slowly shifting power-balance in his family, of the growing wariness in Jafar’s eyes when he looked at his son. Of increasing tendency to praise rather than berate, or little ‘father-son’ talks where Jay mostly listened while Jafar ranted on about some crap or another. It was a transparent ploy, but Jay had gone along with it because if Jafar thought it was working, then he wasn’t plotting to stab his son in the back before he got too dangerous. And because life was better when you didn’t rock the boat with Jafar.

If Jafar has magic, then that entire delicate power balance is overturned. Jafar is back to being completely in control. Jay’s hands are suddenly sweating and his skin feels too tight, taut like a drum beating in time with his pulse.

“Is everything alright?” Coach calls over.

“Fine!” Evie says. “Just discussing the logistics.” She drops her voice into a whisper. “Carlos, you _know_ what your mother will do to you.”

“Not if I catch her on a good day. Or if I catch her on a neutral day and she forgets I was even gone. Statistically speaking, it’s one in five that I’ll catch her on a bad day. That’s better odds than either of you. Can you tell me I’m wrong?”

Jay wants to. So badly.

When neither he nor Evie says anything, Carlos laughs, sharp and angry. “That’s what I thought.”

* * *

Carlos watches Coach’s expression when they inform him that only Carlos will be coming to the hospital with Mal. There’s a beat of hesitation, but he doesn’t argue too hard. It only puts Carlos on edge, like when a trader didn’t argue too hard with your price because the fruit they were selling you was rotten anyway.

He’d never liked Coach as much as Jay did. He hadn’t understood why Jay took such a shine to an adult they barely knew. Not until recently when it struck him that Nasira and Coach had that same business-like way about them. Even when they raised their voice, there was never any sense they’d lost control of themselves. They knew exactly what they wanted and what they were aiming to get out of you.

The difference is that Carlos believed _Nasira’s_ motivations. Her words aligned with her actions. She hadn’t told Jay that thing until it was far too late to get anything useful out of him and there was no conceivable benefit to her saying it. Coach, for all the praise he’d heaped on Jay and the favour he held him in, hasn’t yet done anything to prove he can be relied on. In fact, his story is riddled with inconsistencies. If he’s not outright lying, he’s hiding _something_. Mal would agree if she were awake.

But she isn't, and Evie is out of her mind with worry and Jay is crippled with guilt. Carlos is the only one seeing clearly, so he'll have to take the fall and hope they play it smart from now on.

He helps Jay carry Mal out to the road, where they lay her down on the sidewalk. She’s stopped crying, which would be reassuring if she also hadn’t stopped responding to anything, eyes closed and body limp. While Jay tucks his jacket over her, Coach gets out his mobile and starts dialling for an ambulance. Or what he says is an ambulance anyway; Carlos would be cynically unsurprised if a fleet of squad cars showed up instead.

“You guys should get going,” he says quietly to Evie. 

She nods, giving him a strange intense look. Memorising his face, he realises. This might be the last time they see each other. “Watch your back,” she says and slips her arms around him, squeezing tight. “Tell your mother we made you do it. She’ll believe it.”

“Just worry about yourselves.” It’s difficult to let go. Evie was his first friend, even before the other two. He can barely imagine what it’s going to be like without her.

When she lets go, Jay surprises him by hugging him too, so tight it’s bordering on painful. “I’m–”

“What did I say about being stupid?” Then, because this might be the last time Carlos ever sees him and he doesn’t want it to end in a regret. “You want to make it up to me, go see that pirate ship.” 

It’s worth it to hear Jay laugh quietly in his ear, but when Jay pulls back he has his expression locked down again. Blankly neutral. Carlos hopes that means Jay has his head in the game; he doesn’t want this whole self-sacrifice thing to have been for nothing.

Coach, finishing up his phone call, says: “Are you sure I can’t convince you two to come with us?”

Jay hesitates a beat, and Evie takes his hand, saying firmly: “We’ll call you tomorrow morning to find out how Mal is.”

Again, Coach accepts the blatant lie far too easily. It makes Carlos’ palms itch, trying to figure out the guy’s angle. They watch Jay and Evie until they turn the corner out of sight, then Carlos sits down beside Mal to wait.

“Jay’s going to figure out you’re scamming him sooner or later,” he says conversationally.

“I’m not scamming anyone,” Coach replies, kneeling down to check Mal’s pulse.

“So you’re not lying your ass off about something?”

“There’s a time and place for certain truths. This is not it.”

Carlos scoffs. At least Coach isn't denying it anymore.

It’s an awkward silence until they wait. Coach makes several attempts at conversation that Carlos shoots down. Without a watch or phone, he's not sure how long it is before they hear the sirens and an ambulance comes racing around the corner, screeching to a stop before them. 

The man and woman that get out are wearing green uniforms with white letters stamped on the back that Carlos can’t read. They fire questions at them in rapid Arabic, of which Carlos only understands one word in twenty and that Coach answers, gesturing emphatically. Whatever he says has them worried, because after that they are intent on getting Mal into the back of that ambulance as quickly as possible.

Coach stops Carlos when he tries to climb in after her. “There’s a car coming. We’ll follow in that.”

“You said I could stay with her,” Carlos snaps. “You promised, or were you bullshitting about that too?” He glares until Coach sighs and says something to the paramedics. They don’t like it, but they let Carlos into the back, making him sit down out of the way. He doesn’t care so long as they don’t try to separate him from Mal.

In the lights of the moving ambulance, Mal looks even more washed out than before, like the way that people get right before the Barrier kicks in. The male paramedic (the woman is driving) puts an oxygen mask on her and tucks a blanket around her. The other stuff he’s doing – checking her pupils, taking her pulse – Carlos vaguely recognises from the few times he's attended the medical centre on the Isle. 

“Parlez-vous français?” The paramedic says while he’s attaching the IV. It takes a few moments Carlos to kick start his tired brain into translating that to English. _Do you speak French?_

“ _Some,_ ” he answers in the same language. It’s a struggle to get mind and mouth in sync, to coherently say what’s in his head. _“I understand more than I speak.”_ It was one of the most common languages on the Isle, so you couldn’t get by without at least a basic understanding. Jay and Evie were better, though Mal was the only one truly fluent.

_“Good. I speak no English, but I speak some French. Do not touch anything in here. I am trying to help her and I do not need you getting in the way.”_

He sounds like the medical staff on the Isle; harried with overwork and no time for any crap. That soothes Carlos more than any amount of false reassurances or fake kindness.

 _“I won’t.”_ He looks at Mal. _“Can I hold her hand?”_

The paramedic nods. _“Her right only.”_

Carlos curls his fingers through Mal’s. She feels cold.  

When the ambulance stops, the doors open and there’s a swarm of activity as Mal is lifted out onto a gurney and rushed inside. Carlos jumps down and follows, pushing around the doctor who tries to stop him. Two other men in blue scrubs stop him from following through the doors, speaking at him in loud Arabic that he doesn’t understand.

“I’m going with her!” He tells them, hoping that one of them understands English. Then when that doesn’t work, switches to French, and then to German, then in desperation Italian.

Someone calls out and the male paramedic comes running up. He talks rapidly to the two men, then turns to Carlos and says in French: _“They want to know if you’re a relative.”_

 _“Her brother,”_ Carlos says immediately, which is complete bullshit but no one’s here to call him on it. When the guy looks at him doubtfully, he adds helpfully: _“On our dad’s side.”_

The paramedic translates that, then tells Carlos: _“You can go in, but you must wait until they’ve finished treating her.”_

_“How long?”_

_“Half an hour._ Maybe _. There is no way to be certain. You must wait out here until they tell you to go through.”_

Carlos has no intention of waiting that long, but if he pretends to be compliant, maybe they’ll stop watching him so he can slip through.

_“Okay. I will wait.”_

He sits down facing the doors and waits. There’s a lot of people here, apparently waiting as well. It’s almost as bad as Thursdays on the Isle, when the Medical centre was open, though at least no one looked likely to knife each other in order to get treated sooner. Some don’t even look that bad; he’s treated worse himself at home with a sterilised needle and thread, and a lot of willow-bark. 

The nurses come by a few times, giving him odd looks. Eventually one tries to talk to him, which goes nowhere when they have no languages in common. She goes away and comes back with one who speaks English.

“Please come this way,” she says. Carlos jumps up.

“Mal’s okay?”

“She is not out yet. We want to take a look at that head wound.”

Carlos nearly asks what head wound, then recalls that he got hit in the face earlier and the guy’s ring had ripped open his eyebrow. It stopped bleeding a while back and it’s not deep enough for stitches, but cleaning it out might be a good idea. And it’ll give him something to do while waiting for Mal.

He follows the woman to an exam bed, which is a lot newer than the ones from the Medical Centre. There aren’t even any old stains on it. She draws the curtains and starts getting out stuff from the cupboard.

“I’m going to give you a local anaesthetic first,” she says, snapping on latex gloves.

“Why? It’s not that bad.”

“Humour me. It’ll hurt, but cleaning it out without it will hurt worse.”

He doesn’t know what all the fuss is about; the needle hurts going in, but it’s far from unbearable and turns numb literally seconds later. She has the wound cleaned out within minutes and puts in something she calls a butterfly stitch, that will naturally dissolve without him needing to come back. He thinks that’s kind of awesome; maybe if the medical centre had time to treat more than the most dire cases, they’d have stuff like this?

“You are the moist stoic patient I’ve had all year,” the nurse remarks, smoothing down sticking plaster. “Not even a flinch. Any other injuries I should know about?”

“Just a sprained finger,” Carlos shrugs. “And some bruises on my stomach. Nothing too bad.”

He’d have kept his mouth shut if he’d known what a fuss that would cause. The sprained finger gets a little brace which is going to make using his right hand difficult for the next week, but the bruises worry her enough that she calls a doctor in to take a look, so Carlos has to lie there while two people poke at his stomach talking over him in a language he doesn’t understand. 

“Does this hurt?” The doctor says in English, one hand pressing down lightly on Carlos’ stomach.

“No.” 

“Any unusual warmth or swelling?”

“No, and I know what internal bleeding feels like.”

She frowns. “How did this happen again?”

“Some guys jumped us at the train station.”

“Not at home then?”

“No.” Carlos is faintly annoyed because they’ve already asked this question a few times in several different ways. He knows when someone’s trying to trip him up, though he doesn’t get the _point_. “Look, my mom goes for the face, not the stomach, and only when she’s been drinking, which she usually doesn’t because she’s unbalanced enough as is, and she knows it. This –” He gestures at his stomach. “ – is just shit that happened, okay? My friends and I weren’t careful and we got jumped.”

He sees the careful stillness of their expression and knows that he’s said the wrong thing again.

“I’m not here for me,” he says in frustration. “Can you just tell me if Mal is okay?”

The doctor strips off her gloves. “I’ll go find out,” she says with a significant look at the nurse. “Carlos, was it? What’s your last name?”

Carlos hesitates. The name De Vil is well known on the western coast, but he has no idea if his mother was ever particularly famous in Agrabah.

“Raven,” he says after a moment. That’s Mal’s last name on her school paperwork, but it means about as much as the paper it’s written on. Fay don’t have much use for last names and Maleficent certainly never used one. Anyway, if he and Mal are supposed to share a father, it looks more believable if they share a surname.

“Carlos Raven. Alright, there’s a couple more tests I’d like to run so you might as well sit back and get comfortable. Nurse Daher will let you know when you can go in to see your sister.”

 _Bullshit_ , Carlos thinks. “Okay,” he says agreeably, which seems to satisfy them.

He waits a few minutes after they’re gone, then peeks through the curtains. All the doctors and nurses seem distracted with other patients, so he slips down the hall to the doors that Mal was taken through. Before he gets there, he hears raised voices at the counter. Two men in business suits are arguing with the nurse on duty. 

“ _– immediate release into our custody,_ ” one of them is saying in French. A native speaker, Carlos thinks. He doesn’t have that nasal intonation that denotes an Isle resident. This guy speaks like Ben when he switches back to his first language.

The nurse says something pleasantly in Arabic that Carlos could translate just by tone alone: Sorry, can’t understand you. Come back later. The run-around tone of helpful unhelpfulness.

 _“By the gods does no one speak a civilized tongue?”_ The suit says to his companion, then switches to English. “Arrest warrant! I have an arrest warrant for Malady Raven!”

Carlos decides to go back the way he’d come, easing out of sight around the corner. Except he collides with a male nurse coming the other way who drops the tray he’s carrying, and the crash draws every eye in the room their way. 

The suit’s eyes widen in recognition. “Carlos De Vil!” He shouts. “Stop right there!”

It’s laughable because Carlos has nowhere to go. There’s no exit this way except past them and he can’t leave Mal anyway. He backs off as they come at him, unable to run but unwilling to just stand still and take whatever beating they’re about to hand out –

Then suddenly the male nurse is shoving Carlos behind him, getting in the way long enough for the English-speaking doctor to comes running over and then there’s a lot of shouting back-and-forth, about jurisdictions and patient release, most of which boils down to variations of “I’m taking him” and “no, you aren’t”. Carlos is kind of impressed how loud and aggressive the doctor gets. She’d have done well at the medical clinic, where communication with your patients was fifty percent yelling.

“You still need the attending doctor’s consent to remove him from a hospital,” she snarls. “And I haven’t released him yet.”

“I’m an agent of the high crown and he is an Isle resident –”

“Do you want to be responsible if he bleeds out internally? What happens if he dies in your custody? Do you really want that on your conscience?”

The suit glances at Carlos. “Looks fine to me. He’s up and about.”

“He’s supposed to be in bed.” She snaps an order at the male nurse, who puts a hand on Carlos shoulder and starts shooing him back toward the curtained cubicle. Carlos is only too happy to comply. “I need to perform further tests before I can be satisfied. You have no right to take him.”

“You’re interfering with an order of the high crown. That carries charges of obstruction of –”

“What’s going on?” And finally, finally Coach arrives, striding past the counter.

The abrupt change in demeanour is staggering. Immediately the suits’ body language shifts, spines stiffening like cats when a dog entered the room. The doctor also straightened, but her expression isn’t that of someone encountering an _unpleasant_ surprise. Nearly everyone, Carlos realises, is staring at Coach like they recognise him and are a little dazzled by his presence. The same way people look at Ben in Auradon.

“Sir,” the suit says after a moment, like the word costs him some effort to say. “We are taking Carlos De Vil and Malady Raven into custody, for return to the Isle.”

Coach glances at Carlos. “Why?” He says, as if he found that statement a profoundly strange one.

“All escaped villains are being captured and returned to the Isle –”

“Except Carlos and Mal are not villains and they didn’t escape. They were released two months ago to attend school.” Coach raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure you heard of it. It was all over the news for a few weeks.” 

“They left without permission–”

“That’s a disciplinary matter for the school to handle. I’m a member of the school, and as you can see, I’m handling it.” He shakes his head. “There may be a detention or two in their future, I’m afraid.”

Carlos is reluctantly impressed. He’s heard a lot of bullshit in his time, but he’s never heard it so masterfully delivered before.

The suit tries again. “They were involved in a magical assault at the train station.”

“Which Carlos could clearly not have done, because he possesses no magic that could lend itself to spells. And Mal is a very sick girl who's in no condition to assault anyone or be removed from the hospital. In any case, I happen to know the Agrabah police are handling the matter, which you are not.” Coach pauses a beat, then adds as if it had just occurred to him: “Perhaps I should contact Queen Jasmine and ask her to decide whose jurisdiction this fits under.”

The suit’s mouth tightens. He looks Coach over and says in French: _“It makes me sick, things like you hiding behind legalities."_  

 _“It’s the formalities that keep us civilized,”_ Coach replies easily, perfectly fluent. _“Would you prefer if I was_ un _civilized?”_

Probably very few people except Carlos understood what they were saying, so he was one of the few who heard anything other than an exchange of foreign pleasantries, who knew that the suit and Coach threatened each other – and it was the suit that blinked.

Carlos watches the two agents walk away and says: “Who are you?” His voice comes out high pitched and sharp with nerves. “You’re not just a teacher.”

“A friend,” Coach says gently. “I’m a friend.” 

Carlos doesn’t have the nerve to call him out on it again. He's starting to suspect that he'd severely underestimated the level of Coach's lies. Then English-speaking nurse comes over to tell him he can go in to see Mal, and he is only too keen to get away from Coach. 

Out back, Mal is still unconscious, lying on a bed and hooked up to machines that Carlos would have been itching to examine more closely if they weren’t attached to her. She doesn't look much better than she did before, other than someone has cleaned up the vomit and blood and put her into a white hospital gown. Carlos pulls up a chair and squeezes her cold hand. His own is shaking. 

“Wake up, Mal,” he whispers, and wishes it didn't sound like a plea. “We could really use your help.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is mostly moving parts, as we start to see some of the politics and personal history in the background. Lets say some things are a lot more complicated than they appear. 
> 
> I should add another warning - there's more discussion of past sexual abuse this chapter. It's not explicit and I've kept it as vague as I could, but just be aware if that's something you'd prefer not to read about.

Beast is seething as he storms through the building. Perhaps ‘storms’ is incorrect. By long practise, he’s keeping a calm façade, walking as if he had urgent business, but retaining the dignity of his station. Even though what he really wants to do is charge through the building and shake answers out of Phoebus.

Phoebus’ secretary looks up from his desk as Beast approaches. “Your Majesty – I mean, Lord Regent – he’s in with someone at the moment. He’ll be right out if you’ll just –”

Beast stalks past and shoves the door to Phoebus’ office open.

"Phoebus, you owe me some damn ans- "

He stops. 

Phoebus is in one of the comfortable chairs by the window, looking up with a barely concealed irritation. Seated opposite is a dark-haired woman, crying messily into a crumpled tissue. 

“Beast, you’re early,” Phoebus says tightly. “If you’ll just give me a minute –”

“I’ll be outside,” Beast says. He retreats and closes the door, returning to sit in the reception area. The secretary pretends to ignore him and Beast’s face feels hot. It’s been a long time since he’s so thoroughly put his foot in it. His temper again.

Of late, it feels like everything makes him want to lash out. Even Belle’s presence can no longer centre him like it used to. Just this morning they’d had a furious argument where she’d accused him of using her as a crutch. _“I’m tired of having to be the reasonable one, I’m tired of having to pacify you and talk you down, when it’s my son lying in there too. You’re an adult, you can use some damn self control!”_

In hindsight, maybe it’s not that Phoebus that Beast is angry at. He just makes a convenient target for all Beast’s frustration.

It’s at least fifteen minutes before Phoebus’ door opens and the woman walks out. With a little shock, Beast realises that's Snow White. He hadn't recognised her before, under all the tears. She gives Beast an icy glare and stalks toward the elevator, perfectly composed. 

“Beast,” Phoebus says from the doorway. “Come on through.”

Beast follows him in. He has the vague feeling of a schoolboy called into a principal’s office, knowing he’s done wrong and not having much in the way of defence.

“I’m sorry about before.”

Phoebus closes the door behind them. “That was a very sensitive conversation regarding information pertinent to a current case. She could have clammed up completely.”

“I _am_ sorry.” Beast is not used to being on the back foot. “Did she clam up?” He doesn’t want to be responsible for ruining whatever case Phoebus is working on.

“No,” Phoebus says after a moment. “She actually filled in some very important blanks for me, which is useful.”

He still doesn’t look very happy, and not just because Beast barged into his office. He looks exhausted like Beast hasn’t seen him since the early days before Unification, when it seemed every other week some villain was wreaking havoc in some quiet countryside.

“Are you alright?” Beast asks tentatively, and Phoebus shakes his head after a moment, sinking into one of the chairs by the window.

“You know, there was a time I thought Frollo was the worst I’d ever have to deal with. That I’d never have to look that kind of evil in the face again.” Phoebus looked out across the city. “Now I look back and envy that naivety.”

Beast slowly sinks into the other chair. “Everything seems to be falling apart,” he admits. “Everything we worked for. Peace, security, my entire legacy. It’s like I looked away for one second and everything just collapsed.”

And none of it would matter one little bit, if Ben would just _wake up_.

After a moment, Phoebus asks: “What did you want to talk to me about? I assume it was urgent from the way you barged in here.”

Beast sighs. “This whole situation with the Isle children has spiralled out of control. I know it’s not your fault, but I’ve got a hundred escapees to track down and Coach chooses _now_ to go rogue?”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think he was planning it until that footage aired.”

“It’s really not. It makes us look like fools, like we can’t control our own djinn population.”

“I thought that was the whole point of the anti-magical-slavery act.”

Beast chuckles, but there's a serious undertone to Phoebus' little witticism. Auradon holds the only free djinn population in the world. It’s why the high crown enjoys their complete support, despite the magic ban. Looked at in that light, Coach’s actions make no sense at all.

“I don’t understand why he’d do it,” Beast says. “I knew he was upset about the magic lessons, but over Jafar’s son? Maleficent’s daughter? He of all people should understand what I was trying to protect us from.”

“I don’t think he’s looking at them like that.”

“Then help me understand how, because I just can’t make sense of it.”

Phoebus runs a weary hand through his hair. “Think about what Coach is. What he’s been through. When he looks at them, he doesn’t see villains. He sees children who’ve been imprisoned and exploited just as he was.”

“Imprisoned? That’s a bit of an exaggeration…”

“They’ve been trapped behind the Barrier since birth. Until Ben made his decree, they had no expectation of ever being allowed to leave. I’m not saying I agree, Beast,” he adds when Beast opens his mouth. “I’m just telling you how he’s seeing it.”

“But _Jafar’s_ son. He knows what Jafar is capable of.”

Phoebus shrugs. “I suspect Jay and Coach share a common enemy there, given how Jay was raised.”

“You mean the supposed abuse? Please. Phoebus, you can’t honestly believe that. You got it from a ten year old pick pocket. She was probably exaggerating to get sympathy.”

Phoebus stands up and walks over to his desk. He brings back several files, dropping them on the couch next to Beast. 

“What are these?” 

“Medical records from the Isle. Go on, have a look.” Phoebus’ expression is like stone.

Beast is abruptly certain that he doesn’t want to look at those records. That if he looks at them, he’ll see something he can’t un-see.

 _Don’t be a coward,_ he thinks, and opens the first file.

* * *

Lacey is in the middle of going through the class schedules – thank the gods Fairy God Mother was fanatically organised and planned everything six months in advance – when the school secretary buzzes.

“I’m sorry, Miss Lumiere, but were you expecting an appointment?”  

“No,” Lacey says, puzzled. “But maybe Fairy God Mother arranged something before the coronation. Who is it?”

“Miss Snow. You know, the _reporter_.”

There’s an unspoken question about what to do. The school was meant to be a media free zone, barring special occasions. There was even a curse of infernal itching on the school grounds for any reporter who tried to sneak in unauthorised.

However, Snow White did happen to be the parent of a student. Her son, Seth White, was in ninth grade and she had also generously contributed to Evie Fitzroy’s education fund, albeit with the condition that Evie not be informed of the source.

“Tell her I’ll be right down,” Lacey says. “And remind her to stick to the front administration area, would you? We don’t want her activating the curse by mistake.”

She quickly checks in the mirror for any ink stains on her nose and to make sure her hair is appropriately perfect (a professional façade inspires confidence, as her father says) before heading downstairs. 

In the foyer, a dark-haired, pretty woman stands as Lacey approaches. “You’re Fairy God Mother’s replacement?”

“Stand in,” Lacey corrects and holds out her hand. “Lacey Lumiere. Do you prefer Snow or Miss White?” She finds that’s a good way to get things moving and get a gage for the temperament of a parent.

“Snow is fine.” She shakes Lacey’s hand with a firm grip, then gets distracted by a pair of students who are walking past, giggling and whispering together. Lacey can’t quite read Snow’s expression, other than it looks like pain.

“Were you here about Seth?” She prompts politely.

“No, not Seth.” Snow pauses, but more like she’s marshalling herself for some unpleasant task than any real hesitation. “Captain Phoebus told me about Genev - about Evie." 

Lacey is instantly on her guard. "We're all very worried about Evie and hope she returns home soon," she says, which seems a neutral enough phrase. She's under no obligation to tell Snow anything. The woman wasn't a blood relative, hadn't grown up with Evie, and certainly isn't listed as having any kind of custody. 

"I was hoping I could see her room."

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to allow anyone to enter student rooms unless they're a custodian or a relative. It's a security issue." 

Snow opens up her bag and pulls out a folded sheet of paper. "I have authority to access Evie's belongings and records." 

Lacey unfolds the paper and finds a form from the Misthaven embassy dated this morning with a hasty signature and 'approved' stamped in red letters. Being a former queen must have its privileges because it gives Snow more or less carte blanche regarding Evie. 

Lacey re-folds the form, slowly smoothing down the creases. "Is this for a story?" She asks. 

"No." 

"Are you sure? Because if you're looking for sordid details to regurgitate on television, I can't help you there." 

"I'm not here as a reporter." Snow bites her lip and visibly checks herself, smoothing out the indent with the tip of her tongue. "I just want to see her room. That's all. There won't be any story.  You have my word." 

Lacey still doesn't like it, but the letter doesn't give her much choice in the matter. Evie is a Misthaven ward and what they say goes until (if) a permanent guardian is assigned. 

“I’ll get you a visitor’s badge. It’ll grant you an exception to the curse, if you don't mind waiting a few minutes.”

* * *

Someone has written _‘good riddan_ _ce’_ on Mal and Evie’s door in red felt pen. 

"That wasn't here this morning," Lacey says, barely managing to keep her voice calm. When she finds the student that did this, they are going to be in detention until graduation and that's if they're lucky. 

"Kids can be cruel," Snow remarks. She bends down and picks up something half-tucked under the door. It's a pink napkin folded into an origami flower. _I'm sorry_ is written in tiny letters along one petal. "Though not all of them, I suppose." 

Lacey unlocks the door and opens it. Inside, the curtains have been drawn. Everything is exactly as it was after the police went through.

Snow goes over to the dresser, looking at the various bottles of make-up and perfume. “These were hers?”

“I’m not sure,” Lacey admits. “The girls say Evie and Mal shared everything.”

Snow continues her slow inspection of the room. She touches the sewing machine, tracing the bedazzled letters spelling Evie’s name. 

“She liked to sew?”

“All the time. Apparently she was good at it too. Could make clothes out of anything.”

Snow nods distantly. “Mom hated making anything for herself. Said it was work for peasants.”

It takes Lacey a moment to realise that Snow is talking about Genevieve Grimhilde. Everyone knew that the Misthaven princess had lived with her step-mother for the better part of ten years after her father had died in suspicious circumstances. However, it was a bit of a jolt to hear Snow White use the word 'Mom' so casually. 

Fortunately Snow seems to have moved back to her first subject. “What was she like? Evie?”

Lacey hesitates. How did one sum up a student in a few words? More importantly, what could she say about Evie that wouldn't violate the girl's privacy? 

“She was kind,” she says finally. “A sweet girl. She liked fixing people. About the worst thing I can say about her is that sometimes she wanted to fix things that didn’t need fixing.”

“Like…?”

“If a girl wasn’t wearing make-up. Or was wearing a colour Evie didn’t think suited her. Evie could be quite insensitive about telling them so. Kindly meant, I think, but it cost her some friends.”

A pity really, because Lacey thinks that some of those rough-and-tumble girls would have gotten along better with Evie and Mal than the nobility they’d hovered around. Tara and Jazz for example, who smashed all the female lacrosse championships with their jungle-style acrobatics. Or red-haired Raina of Sherwood, who proudly called her father a thief but would punch anyone other than Aziz who used the word.

Snow sits down on Evie’s perfectly made bed, her hand smoothing across the counterpane.

“I almost met her, you know,” she says suddenly. “A few years back, after my divorce was finalised.”

“I didn’t know that,” Lacey replies cautiously, wondering where this was going. 

Snow continues like she hadn't spoken. "I was lonely, living in France by myself. Seth was with his father in Misthaven and I didn’t have any other family. So I had this idea to bring Evie over for visits. I thought it would be good for her as well. Give her the chance to see the mainland and get away from Mom's influence every so often. It was all arranged. Then I got a letter from Mom; apparently they thought it would be a good idea to 'open the lines of communication' or something, if I was going to be spending time with Evie." 

Snow pauses there, mouth tightening before spitting out the words. 

"She said she was glad I was putting the past behind me, that I wasn’t letting jealousy get the better of me, now that she had the perfect daughter she’d always wanted. The daughter she could love the _right_ way. She even included pictures of Evie in these beautiful dresses and lovely hair and sparkly shoes. Sparkly. Fucking. Shoes. We lived in a castle and Mom made me wear rags. They lived on an island of garbage and she found Evie clothes out of a catalogue.” Snow laughs suddenly, the edges bright and glittering sharp. “Mom always did know what buttons to press.”

“She was your mother,” Lacey says gently. “You had a right to be angry.” 

“At her, yes. Not Evie. And the worst part is that if I’d gone through with it, if I’d met Evie the way I planned, _I would have known_. I’d have smelled that rotten bitch’s mind-games a mile off." 

Gods, how much had Phoebus told her? "You don't know that for sure -"

"I do. It’s not something you forget. It sticks with you, even years later, this idea that maybe if you’d done the right thing, said the right words – or maybe if you hadn’t said or done the wrong thing – then maybe she could have loved you the way mothers were supposed to love their daughters. So really that makes what happened all your fault.”

And now Lacey begins to understand. 

It makes sense in a way. What was it her father said once? Bullies never hurt anyone just once. They keep doing it, because so long as they get away with it there's no incentive for them to stop. The same would be true of predators of all stripes and this is one particular crime that Grimhilde was never convicted of. So long as her victims remained convinced they were the only ones, the chances of them coming forward would be low. Snow might not even be the first, nor Evie the most recent. 

Snow sets the origami flower on the bedside table and stands up, brushing non-existent dust off her skirt and straightening her jacket. Her voice, though rough, is clear and firm as she asks: 

“Is there something in particular here that you think Evie would like back? It needs to be small enough to fit in carry-on baggage.”

* * *

Leah doesn’t relax until her security detail is past the Auroria border into Misthaven. She’s still not entirely easy until they arrive at the royal palace where King Florian is there to greet her.

“Queen Leah,” he greets her warmly as she gets out the car. “I thought King Stefan was coming?”

“A last minute emergency, I'm afraid." 

If that's what you call the situation in Agrabah. Personally, Leah felt that the situation was perfectly under control. Maleficent's daughter was no threat to anyone comatose in hospital and it might be... prudent for their family to distance themselves. With that video footage airing, there were rumblings from the magical community about hate crimes and fay rights that could easily ignite into something worse. 

None of which, however, she felt comfortable discussing with the Misthaven king, so she simply says: "He sends his deepest apologies." 

“Ah, well," Florian offers her his arm. "Come inside, I have tea waiting. You take yours white with one, I believe."

She's touched by his recall. It had taken Stefan two years of marriage to remember that she hated coffee. She’ll never understand why Snow left Florian. He is such an unbelievably attentive, thoughtful man. 

Inside, Florian settles them in a private little sitting room rather than one of the more formal boardrooms. Whatever they discuss here will be informal, without the weight of official negotiation. Leah approves. In these matters, it's best to proceed carefully, to sound each other out first before diving into the meat of it.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice," she says, opening with the usual pleasantries. "How is the search from Grimhilde going?”

“Not well.” Florian sighs, pouring tea. “They finally got a headcount on the Isle, and she’s one of the missing. Where she is now is anyone’s guess.” 

“Does Snow know?”

Florian nods. “She’s aware. She’s on her way to Agrabah right now.” 

“Is that wise? Surely that’s the last place she should be. If Grimhelde’s daughter is there, it’s only a matter of time before Grimhilde herself goes there.” 

Florian makes a tiny aborted motion with his chin, as if he were about to agree and stopped himself in time. “It’s a family matter. Once Snow has finished up, they’ll be flying to Misthaven.”

 _They._ Meaning Snow expects to bring someone back with her. Leah wonders, but doesn’t ask. She’s long suspected that Snow does favours for her ex-husband now and then, her job as reporter giving her the perfect alibi for the more secretive royal affairs. 

Florian changes the subject. “How is Briar doing?”

“Quite well.” Honesty compels Leah to admit: “Happier, actually. I think it helped to know that Maleficent... well, we all saw what happened at the church." 

Terrible to rejoice in someone's death, and yet so long as Maleficent was alive, there was the constant whisper of what-if. What if she got off the Isle. What if she came back. Well, the worst had happened and it turned out to be exactly the closure they needed.

Oddly, the only one in their family who didn't seem happier was Stefan, who seemed as weighed down as ever. Leah supposes it will take time for the reality to hit him, that Maleficent is really gone.  

Florian nods thoughtfully. "It's hard to know how to react in these times," he remarks. "At least Ben is likely to recover. They believe it won't be long now." 

"Yes." Leah sips her tea. "That is actually what we wanted to discuss with you." 

"Oh?"  

"While Ben most likely will recover - and we all want him to - there is the chance he will not. Therefore it is important, for stability purposes, to have a clear line of succession agreed upon."  

Florian frowns. "Ben has no siblings," he points out. "Unless you want the crown to revert to Beast?" 

"We do not," Leah assures him. While Beast had been extremely popular back in the day - a young man of vision and drive - his popularity had waned. What had once been fresh policies were unchanged twenty years later, unable or unwilling to change with the times.

Part of it was probably also due to the changing of the guard. Many of the rulers who had put him in power had passed away like the old Agrabah sultan or retired like Charmington's father, who had succumbed to dementia and now lived in a nursing home. The sons and daughters that succeeded them had different ideas about how they wanted to do things. It was strange to think that Leah and Stefan were one of the few left from the old guard. The last remnants of a bygone era. 

"It is a shame the French line is so sparse,” she continues. “However, Ben's grandfather had a younger sister who married into the Charmington royal family. She passed away some years back, but that puts Kit next in line to the French throne. He has three children who could inherit. The eldest is Chad." 

Florian's expression goes impressively blank. 

"Chad Charming?" He says slowly. 

"Yes." Leah can't read Florian at all and continues carefully. "He is currently romantically involved with my granddaughter Audrey. Were that relationship to continue, that would consolidate power of two very powerful kingdoms."

And, it went without saying, benefit all of the central kingdoms indirectly. There had been a reason so many people were keen to see Ben married off to Audrey. Better her than someone from an outlying kingdom, or possibly outside Auradon altogether, who might have different ideas about trade agreements or immigration policies.

Florian sets his cup down. "Queen Leah," he says seriously. "I respect you so I won't waste time mincing around with words. I will _never_ support Chad on a bid for the high crown. One of his siblings, perhaps, if they turn out to be of more noble character. Not Chad." 

Leah had not been expecting an outright refusal. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Has he done something to offend you?" 

Florian’s reply is equally blunt. "Yes. He has. My family will not be offering him any support, and should he be acknowledged as a serious candidate, we will do everything in our power to persuade Auradon otherwise." 

"May I ask what happened?" 

"I would suggest directing that question at his parents.  I would also advise against allowing your granddaughter to continue dating him." 

Leah's chest tightens. "Is it a safety concern?" 

"Not that I'm aware of. However his lack of respect for her is appalling." 

Leah can read between the lines. That fool boy has cheated on Audrey. And his blasted parents _knew_ and never said a word. No wonder they'd been so reticent during the opening negotiations. Leah had just thought they were wary about basing a political strategy on a teenage romance that was barely a month old. 

"I see," she says slowly. "Thank you for the information." At least it's coming now rather than after Auroria nailed their colours to any particular mast. Had that come out after they declared for Chad's claim, it could have been a horrendous humiliation. It does beg the question what to do now, but that can wait until Leah gets home and breaks the news to Audrey that she won't be dating Chad anymore. 

"You're welcome," Florian replies. "I'm sorry I could not be more helpful." He pauses and adds: "May I ask what you're planning to do regarding the situation in Agrabah?" 

It's a curious tangent to take and not one that Leah is eager to address. "Agrabah? What about it?" 

"The fay girl, Malady Raven. She is a citizen of Auroria, I thought."

"...yes," Leah admits reluctantly. "Maleficent was from the Moors, which became part of our lands. We didn't have much choice."

Not after Briar signed off on it and refused to rescind, pointing out that if it wasn't them it would be someone else and at least this way they retained a modicum of control. Leah didn't precisely agree, but she also thought the fay girl would inevitably get herself sent back to the Isle, so there wasn't much point in worrying about it. (This had been, of course, before she ran into her at the school). 

"We have no solid plans as of yet," she says. "But I believe the idea is to return the girl to the Isle, health permitting. I think her running away proves that she's not happy in Auradon, and that it would be cruel to force her to stay." 

"Be careful with that," Florian says cryptically. 

“I’m sorry?” 

“I'm sure I don't have to tell you the rumours surrounding her parentage. Sending her to the Isle, kindly meant or not, will have the appearance of you trying to get rid of her." 

Leah’s face turns hot. “If you mean those foul rumours about Stefan having some affair with Maleficent," she says stiffly. "They’re complete nonsense, start to finish. They were enemies. They _hated_ each other. I can attest to that."

Florian nods calmly. “For the record," he says. "I don’t believe them. However what happened on Parent Day served to reignite them." 

Meaning that scene that Leah had made on the lawn. Not for the first time, she curses the school for not warning her. Had she known Maleficent’s daughter was attending, she could have excused herself or braced herself for the encounter. Instead she’d been thrown into it without any warning, and two decades of anger and grief had found a target in a startled teenage girl. Leah isn’t proud of herself for that. It might have gone better had the girl not borne such a shocking resemblance to her mother, like winding back time to Leah’s most helpless, terrified moment. 

Gods, this is going to cause the family embarrassment if (when) the press get wind. She can already see the tabloids. _Queen confronts husband’s secret love child. Juicy details on page six._ Nevermind that the girl was a good two decades too young to be Stefan's daughter, even if it were true. 

“It’s not true though,” she insists to Florian. “Her father is some obscure Scottish villain.” 

Florian frowns. “How do you know that?”

“I checked the paperwork when her citizenship came through.” She avoids Florian’s gaze. “I was curious.”

“Hmm.” Florian picks up his cup. “Leah, my advice is if there are any skeletons in your family closet, you need to get ahead of it. Because given what’s going on at the moment, I can guarantee it's going to get out." 

“There are none,” she says firmly.

* * *

Constance sinks down on the airport lounge with a wince. Above, there's a chime and a woman’s voice comes over the speakers, coolly announcing that all passengers from flight CM-227 to please make their way to gate six.

Gods, why did it have to be planes. Constance _hates_ planes. In order to fit in the seats she has to cast a shapeshifting spell, which means going through an extra layer of security and even then it’s not comfortable. Her body knows it’s wrong and makes her pay for it with terrible aches and pains. She's barely had an hour to recover from the flight from Scotland to France, and the thought of getting onto the changeover flight makes her want to cry.

Still, it has to be done. She doesn't have time undo the spell and let her body relax into its natural form. 

She’s just digging through her purse for some painkillers when she notices a pale, vaguely familiar woman walk through the seating area like she's on a mission, an overnight suitcase trundling along behind her. Constance thinks she might have seen her somewhere before, on tv or a newspaper maybe. It makes her curious enough to listen as the woman parks herself opposite a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned man. 

“Well, hello Phoebus. Beast sending you to clean up his mess?”

“Snow,” the man says, not sounding very pleased. “What are you doing?”

“Flying to Agrabah, same as you. Maybe we’ll be window buddies.”

The man lowers his voice and Constance has to strain her ears to hear. "They don’t even know where Evie is yet. You won’t do much good."

“Making a lot of assumptions, Phoebus. Maybe I’m just following where the story is.”

“Snow.” 

The woman sighs. “The funny thing about guilt? Knowing you could have done something the first time and you didn’t? It means you don’t get the luxury of ignoring it the second time. I’m going.”

A short, somehow weighted pause. “I’d better not cop any flack from Beast over this," the man says, sounding like a concession 

“Oh, I think Beast’s got enough to worry about right now.”

Constance’s curious eavesdropping is interrupted by a new announcement: " _AG-115, flight to Agrabah, please proceed to gate two for boarding_."

She pops the painkillers in her mouth, washing them down with a swig from her water bottle as she thinks about what she overheard. It seems like the man and woman are on their way to Agrabah as well. She wonders idly if it has anything to do with her own business there. Hopefully not. Things are going to get complicated enough without adding new wild cards. 

She swings her overnight bag over her shoulder and heads toward the gate. 

_Just hang on a little longer, Malady. I'm coming._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagine Phoebus as looking a bit like Idris Elba. That patient, weary sort of air that Mr Elba does so well. 
> 
> And just to be clear - Snow had absolutely no idea this was going on. She honestly believed that she was the only one (on some level she believed it was her fault, with all the "fairest of them all" crap that was going on). Grimhilde could write books on gaslighting.


End file.
